


Taking Care of A Knight

by Aki_The_Shiftless



Series: Knights of Yggdrasil [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Eggsy's a good knight, Eventual Hartwin, F/F, Good friend named Timmy, Harry and Merlin are going to have headaches, Harry's still alive, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't want to reveal them just yet, It's going to cross-over with quite a few fandoms, Knights - Freeform, M/M, New villains for the storry, OCs - Freeform, Only platonic relations with OCs, Special Swords, Stubborn Eggsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aki_The_Shiftless/pseuds/Aki_The_Shiftless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gary "Eggsy" Unwin is a Kingsman, and he's also an Arch Knight for the Order of Yggdrasil. Soon after joining Kingsman, the distress from the loss of his mentor gains the attention of the head of the Order. </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>Eggsy's a stubborn mess, and something is fishy with the video feeds of the late Harry Hart's death. On top of that, mysterious vicious deaths around London aren't exactly the best catalyst for taking care of a broken knight. The boss isn't happy, and whoever's broken one of the Order's best and brightest knights is going to have hell to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1, Introductions and a Distress Call

Chapter 1, Introductions and a Distress Call

* * *

The Knights of Yggdrasil, protectors of the realms that are housed within every branch of the great tree. Every realm is home to an Arch Knight, the main protector of their realm, and with every Arch Knight, there is a Celestial Guide, a direct link to the portals that lead into the other branches, and to the Observatory, the meeting place of all knights. Under the two of those members, there were the senior and junior knights. Family, friends, even lovers to the Arch Knight, or to each other; these were the usual members of the Yggdrasil Knights. Each Knight protected their home, their loved ones, from the monsters of the chaos that would threaten the harmony of their worlds.

Occasionally these worlds would link to each other, the branches of the realms interlocking with each other. Linking the plains of two Arch Knights of each of their branches. One would only need to look hard enough.

There is also the head of the Knights, protector of the realm that lies beneath the bark and roots of the great tree. Officially, the title of this Arch Knight is Yggdrasil, the home of the realm of creation. Those who live in this world are capable of creating worlds, imagining places far beyond their rule of logic.  
In every realm, there are laws. Laws of the realm that must be obeyed by both the visitor, and the members of that live in that realm, or else risk dire consequences. Where one realm could be affected by a simple butterfly effect, another can be ignorant of such changes. The laws that the Arch Knights must follow are long and tedious, yet they are laws that must be followed. Or risk oblivion.  
When one accepts the role of Yggdrasil knight, one accepts the gift and curse of knowing every reality you can have. At one point, you can be born as a noble dragon, regal and sleek. Falling for those you care for. In the other, you must acknowledge that in another world, you maybe sad and miserable. With the person you love staring into the eyes of someone else with a gaze filled with love.  
Those who accept the terms and conditions of being an Yggdrasil Knight are gifted with the knowledge and capabilities of friends beyond their own realms. People who are from the future, bonding with wizards and witches from the very far and distant past, interacting and befriending people far beyond the limits of age and status. Meanwhile taking on the pledge to come when requested to, as is one of the laws that are followed within the order. It is what every junior knight learns when they are taught the ways of the Yggdrasil knights.

Thus we watch the head of the Arch counsel.

The Yggdrasil looked on into the health monitor of every member of the Order. Here every knight’s vitals were carefully taken into account. It was a complicated task, seeing as there were different Arch Knights in every realm, depending on what branch those realms lie on. However, it was the Yggdrasil duty to keep track of every single one of them. Including who are using their swords.  
Every Knight had a specifically designed sword just for them, and only for the use in certain situations. More powerful than any substance in the realms, and far more defiant in their handlers, as each sword is coded to they’re masters. The sword of the Yggdrasil was no different. While Knights who are sword wielders would naturally carry their swords with them, those who were in slightly more modern society are kept watch over until their need becomes apparent.

It wasn’t long as swords began popping in and out every few minutes. Erratic heartbeats beeped slightly in the monitors they were being presented in. It wasn’t exactly an abnormality for something like this to happen every day. Yet it was still dreaded when a Knight’s Heart would come very close to stopping completely. It’s happened before. The Yggdrasil was nearly sent into state of panic from the ceased heartbeat. While it is certainly hard to kill a knight, it is certainly possible. As such, precautions must be taken.

Sitting in an office chair of black and white, the Yggdrasil watched the monitor of each knight. Watching carefully for any panics, anything that could be wrong with the knight while avoiding to be directly involved to the natural movement of the branch.

White hair flew in places as fingers combed through the mostly dark brown strands. The Yggdrasil was very much known to be a work-a-holic. Partly because this particular Yggdrasil is the first and current Yggdrasil and partly because of the fact that age is not the same as the realm inside the Great Tree.  
The hair trapped itself with a raised bun, the Yggdrasil behind the hair held dark bruises under the eyes. Signs of up to nearly no sleep was not an uncommon sight to those who see the ‘Boss’ of the Yggdrasil. It’s a demanding job, and should not be taken lightly by anyone. Not even by even the most careless and naive of knights, this was the person taking care of them no matter what time or place, and it’s a legend among the knights of when the Yggdrasil had been upset because one too many knights were careless. It was an unspoken rule in the order of Arch Knights and Celestial Guides to only be reckless if they knew they could handle it.

Never the less, the Yggdrasil stared intently at one particular monitor. This one had been rather erratic in emotions as of late. Changing from depression, regret, anger, rage, grief, happiness, emptiness, it was a confusing set of emotions to have in a single week.

The Yggdrasil held narrowed eyes as the beeps of the knight’s heartbeat started jumping up and down. At one point it even paused every few seconds. Either this one was in a fight and was holding their breath, or something was happening. The Yggdrasil then watched the partner of this Knight’s monitor, the Celestial Guide. It wasn’t beating as erratically as their counterpart, but the ups and downs of the lines were very far in between. Perhaps the guide was taking deep breaths, but the Yggdrasil couldn’t be sure.

Glancing up at the branch in question, the Yggdrasil prepared a portal to arrive close to where the Knight and the Guide was. The Yggdrasil’s form slowly revealed itself in the light; a black jacket was swiftly put on over a black, grey-stripped suit. The white collar peaked out as a small scarf was wrapped around the figure’s neck. The pen that was holding up the figure’s fell to their shoulders as the Yggdrasil placed it back into the pocket of their black slacks, shiny black Oxford’s peaked out from under the ends of the trousers.

The Yggdrasil muttered the last few words of the Yggdrasil code, the destination leaving their lips in a whisper before the figure hopped in.  
“London, England. To Arch Knight Gary Eggsy Unwin.”


	2. Chapter 2, Taking Care of Eggsy, and Messing with Kingsman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to drag Eggsy out of the bar and back into the street, and not to mention figure out what the hell is going on with the world around them. Busy busy day this is.
> 
>  
> 
> (Sorry, i'm afraid I lost the ability to make proper summaries)

Chapter 2, Taking Care of Eggsy, and Messing with Kingsman

* * *

Taking care of a knight was always the first priority. It didn’t matter what the hell was wrong, it didn’t matter what the knight did. If a knight was hurt, they take first priority. That applied to everyone in the Order, and it included the Yggdrasil.

So despite the anger and rage bubbling to the top as a female figure spotted Eggsy’s head his arms, two glasses that were emptied right in front of him, she restrained herself and looked at the hopelessly out of place Celestial Guide.

Thomas “Timmy” Jones wasn’t the type to go out in a bar of all places. With black-framed glasses hovering over his nose, a blue cardigan shrugged on over a blue t-shirt with blue jeans and sneakers. The guy was an obvious bookworm, not someone you’d expect wielding a sword. That was true; swords were more like a general name for the weapon of the members of the order. Realistically, it varied with the person and depended on their preference of weapon. Thomas had a rapier instead of a full on sword; the design was something Yggdrasil remembered well. It was a thin silver blade with a black leather handle, wrapped in a silver braided string that lead to the owl shaped handle.

The woman stood behind Timmy and cleared her throat; the boy looked up and sighed at the site. That wasn’t a good sign.

She moved to pay the bill and between the two of them, they got the young man on his feet and moving on to Timmy’s flat in London. They both knew he didn’t want to go to the room in the Tailor’s and Eggsy would never want his Mum to see him like this.

They both got him to bed and they sat around Timmy’s living room. It wasn’t expensive, but it was homey by all means. The air was charged with tension, Timmy had a cup of tea in his hands to calm his nerves and the woman patiently waited for Timmy to gather himself and explain the situation.

After a few minutes, the boy finally spoke, “Eggsy was recruited by Harry Hart to be a Kingsman agent. After failing to shoot his dog, they had an argument and Galahad left to collect information in a church. Valentine shot Galahad, and Eggsy watched through the computer in Harry’s office. Arthur turned out to be traitor, and Eggsy killed Valentine and his partner Gazelle,” Timmy put his tea down and leaned back into the couch, “after he came back, he just…broke”.

Timmy shifted his gaze to the woman whose face was blank save for a carefully revealed annoyance hidden in her eyes, “What are we going to do Marie? I haven’t done this before”.

Marie tilted her head in acknowledgement, but stayed silent for the moment. It was ironic that just over a year ago Eggsy and Timmy had been recruited in the Order. The two became fast friends, what one didn’t have the other would help cover. Together, they finished their training and their tests faster than any other recruits that the Order had ever handled. It was no surprise that Galahad decided on Eggsy as a candidate.

“For now,” she said, waiting for Timmy to sit up before continuing, “We’re going to take care of him. Eggsy is too stubborn to get those personal feelings in the way of his job. That doesn’t mean it’ll be the same when in the privacy of his down time. You and I both know that telling him the reason as to why I’m here is out of the question”.  
“Kind of obvious considering Eggsy,” Timmy said shrugging, but he noticed the thoughtfulness that suddenly made an appearance in the eyes of his boss.  
“What is it?”  
Marie let out a hum, leaning back on the couch and resting her elbow on the arm and using it as a stand for her cheek. Thoughts flying around her brain until she finally muttered, “I want to see that footage”.  
Timmy went up to grab the laptop that held the video as Marie shrugged off her jacket, hanging it on the nearby coat hanger before settling on the armchair with legs pulled up to her chest. The Oxford shoes left near the door and the suit jacket that had been on top of the buttoned down shirt had been casted aside. The sleeves of the shirt were pulled back to her elbows as she waited for the laptop.

Soon enough, Timmy came in with pajamas in while carrying the laptop and handed it to her. She nodded at him and waved him off to go back to bed. She spent the rest of the night scanning, rewinding, and going frame by frame on the laptop. Eyes steadily turned red behind frames of glasses that weren’t there before as the bullet sailed to Galahad and the flesh restoring itself from going back and forth on the video.  
By morning, she sat herself in the kitchen with her head slumped forward, a steaming cup of coffee right in front of her as she waited for Timmy to wake up and make some greasy food. One reason being Marie never really liked the concept of being healthy; she naturally wanted something ridiculously greasy for breakfast. The second reason was that it was a pretty good hangover cure.

Timmy, without wearing glasses clambered down from upstairs, red hair splayed everywhere as he practically dragged himself across the room. Having the case of what both Eggsy and Marie affectionately called, ‘Morning zombie’. Which, who doesn’t have?  
Timmy grabbed the steaming cup coffee and dunked it down the hatch, placing it back on the table and turning to warm up the skillet for bacon, eggs, and sausage. Almost nearly half and hour later, with sizzling bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and cups of apple juice and more coffee; Eggsy made his appearance with the full a squint and looking like he was going to have grease or have death.

Both Timmy and Marie snorted at the sight, Timmy having his second cup of coffee and handing the other lukewarm coffee off to the grabby Eggsy as he sat down. Hangover clearly hazing his vision, as he didn’t complain about Marie having more bacon than him, along with French toast instead of pancakes; it looked oddly domestic to the outside member, but this was as normal as it gets when it comes to breakfast with your boss eating under your roof. If your boss was supposedly this person that watches out for you every second of every day that is, and acted like a mother hen when you got hurt.

Downing his own mug and not caring to make it look the least bit gentlemanly, Eggsy finally gathered his wits and stared at Marie. His eyes still hazed a tiny bit, “E’llo Mar”.

“Hello Eggsy,” she said finishing off the last of her greasy breakfast so she didn’t have to be the one who had to wash the dishes.

Eggsy stared at Timmy who was reading the newspaper, all while he was mutilating his scrambled eggs. Timmy sighed and put down his newspaper to stare back at Eggsy. Which resulted in a humorous game of who will blink first. Marie switched back and forth between the two as she set her dishes in the sink. Eggsy blinked hard as the light reflected off Timmy’s glasses and got him in the eye.

He glared at Timmy as the other grinned, falling when Eggsy moved to steal the bacon and was successful. Pointing the warm piece of greasy bacon onto Marie who stood in the corner with her eyebrows up.  
“I know why you’re here,” Eggsy said with a sigh as he moved the bacon into his mouth, “and I’m fine”.

“Sure,” she said shrugging, but then motioned to the laptop, “but first I have to tell you something Eggsy”.

“And wot’s that?

Her face was pulled to a scowl as she pointed at the video accusingly, earning looks from both Timmy and Eggsy. Sighing, Marie head tilted back and forth, trying to gather what she wanted to say.

“The video,” she said finally after a few seconds, “where Galahad was shot. It’s wrong”.

“Wot?”

“What?”

Both Eggsy and Timmy got up, the chairs screeching across the floor as they were forcefully shoved backward with the rapid change of position. Causing the three to wince at the sound.  
Timmy cleared his throat as he took a sip of water before continuing, “What do you mean it’s wrong Boss?”  
“I have looked at that video back and forth so many times that I could make a post-it flip animation, but something doesn’t make sense. I went by the damn thing frame by fucking frame,” she paused for breath and to give a chance for her mouth to catch up to her thoughts, “somethings off. There’s a blink and then all of a sudden the glasses are flying? The trajectory should have shattered his lenses, but it just went straight to going down, and I don’t know about you, but those glasses were only brushed by”.

“Someone,” she continued, “Changed the feed, and the video”.

“Tha’s impossible,” Eggsy said, a frown set deep in his face, “the only people who had access to the vid was Merlin, Tim, and me, now you Boss. No one could’a gotten to it, and Merlin said it was on a private server when it was recorded”.

“Then someone did mess with it, because this video’s bullshit,” her arms crossed as she scowled with the sentence. She nodded at Eggsy, “Think you can snoop without being detected by Merlin?”

“Na, i’m not the one whose good with computers, Tim is, even with Arthur gone, Merlin won’t leave ‘is office long enough for me to sneak him in”.

“I guess we’re just going to have to wait till then huh?”

“Yah, come ta think about it, Boss, why don’t you come with me?”

Marie raised her eyebrow but nodded for Eggsy to explain further. Shifting her wait back and forth in habit.  
“If you came in with a bunch of black mail, Merlin will have no choice but ta cooperate. Even without me telling you, you already know a bunch about Kingsman”.

“That will lead to Merlin and inevitably nearly all of Kingsman save for you Eggsy to get after my ass Eggsy,” Eggsy grinned in response when he saw the small smirk at the corner of her lip, “but that will make it all the more enjoyable. Sure, let’s get this shit done”.

~Time Skip~

“How did you even come by all this information?” Merlin asked, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Marie simply faked carelessness with a shrug in the eyes of Lancelot pointing a gun at her face. Now, she did like the girl, Roxy, she looked out for her knight, but for the sake of getting down to what the fuck was happening, she needed to seriously pull some hairs here.

Eggsy slightly shifted nervously, he wanted his Boss and Roxy to get a long. They were two of four of his best friends. Them being Roxy, Tim, Boss, and JB. But he understood, Boss had a job to do. No matter how much he’ll complain about it. Come to think of it, this wasn’t as bad as when Timmy had caught a cold.  
“Well alright,” Merlin gave in, mostly because he didn’t wanted to admit that he couldn’t hack his way through the phone this, “Marie” had even given to him voluntarily.

“Ah, having trouble there Merlin?” Marie said with a small raised eyebrow. Of course, that wasn’t necessary, but Eggsy shrugged it off since Marie never usually had any…human contact on a daily basis.

Merlin scowled and turned to Eggsy to fix a glare, which resulted in Marie smacking him in the shoulder,  
“Oi, don’t blame him of all people. I’m socially retarded”.

Roxy sighed and put her gun down, it was obvious that Marie wasn’t going to pose a threat any time soon.  
Merlin, electing to ignore the t-shirt and jean wearing civilian inside the Kingsman manor, turned to Eggsy and motioned for him to put on his glasses. Seeing that Eggsy obeyed, he explained the mission, receive information from this person while in a cafe, with Eggsy’s charm, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Despite Merlin’s refusal to believe otherwise.

When Eggsy got back up to London, Marie went out saying she was going to grab something outside, which Merlin took the opportunity to launch Eggsy straight into the mission.

As Eggsy arrived in a suit and tie in a dainty little, yet slightly high-cafe, he sought his target out. A brunette, ebony skinned woman from Los Angeles who was said to be working with some members of the cartel who had managed to get a hold of some Valentine SIM card chips.

As he grabbed his coffee and surveyed the empty chairs, looking for his target, until he froze in shock. Nearly dropping his coffee in the process as he turned his head and saw Timmy.  
He gave a look to the red haired boy, who simply turned his palms upward and gave a small shrug of his shoulders. Mimicking a regular shrug, but down-playing it since Eggsy was still wearing his Kingsman issue glasses. After all, Merlin met the Boss, not the Partner.  
Over the line, he heard Merlin curse as he heard some shuffling of a roller chair. If he listened hard enough, he could hear Roxy’s slight chuckles of laughter. Whether it because of the scene he was looking at, or Merlin’s cursing.

He passed the table he was staring at and chose a seat that gave him a direct line to hearing what these two, well, familiar guests were talking about.

Behind him was his Boss, who had gotten a chance to change once she had left the manor, she was wearing a cotton white button down shirt with a back spaghetti strap shirt behind it, the buttons were left undone, and the shirt had been rolled up to the back of her elbows. If you looked close enough, you could see she was wearing a black Sunnto military watch, along with the glean of the two dog-tags. She was also wearing black jeans with a slight rip and age on them with black converse shoes. Of course, she was sitting right next to his target. Was wearing a little black dress with high-heels.

It appeared that his boss was talking animatedly about one of her stories. Boss did have a day job as an author to keep her house in her own world, so thank goodness that the Headquarters of Yggdrasil had some pretty fast wifi. Cable and landline included for some strange mystical reason.

Needless to say, this was unexpected.

Not to doubt his own boss, but she wasn’t joking when she said she was socially retarded. Not socializing with other humans outside of your regular group will do that to you. After you’ve been doing it for damn near a decade. She hated social interaction with strangers. Come to think of it, that was probably why Timmy was here. He must have ordered for her. She didn’t really have anxiety, she was fine when she went up to ask for extra Ranch at McDonald’s or something, but she plain out hated it when she had to order. It took a long time to get used to the idea, but it happened eventually.

The Target was even following along pretty well, even throwing in some advice here and there. Then ending with laughter Marie tilted her head towards the Target, for the sake of conversation dubbed Jane, with an apologetic look.  
“Oh gosh, i’m so sorry about that. I went on about ranting, I didn’t even bother to ask about you!”

“Oh no, no, it’s okay,” Jane said- was that a fucking blush on her face? Eggsy was at a loss for words. This was way beyond the ‘Out of Character Radar’.

“I insist, what do you do for work?”

“Well,” Jane looked around nervously before leaning closer, “I kind of work for a Cartel, I manage expenses”.  
“I would wager that’s a dangerous business your in”.

Jane laughed slightly, “Oh it’s fine, the people I work for are actually kind of nice. Black king, white knight kind of deal”.

Marie chuckled along with her, “Yeah, I know the type. I would think some of your bosses weren’t exactly…here any more”.

“Well that is true,” Jane said nodding, “but they never liked the idea of the free for everyone SIM card”.

“So they never kneeled over, so to speak”.

“Yeah, basically, they’re trying to gather as much SIM and Valentine tech as they could get so they could throw it in a desert and blow it up, but so far, they haven’t collected everything”.

_“Look’s like she’s done your job for you Eggsy”._

“Seems like tha,” he responded. It’s still odd that she would even talk to this gal, Boss doesn’t like…unless. Unless she saw the mission briefing with Merlin, but tha’s impossible-. He breathed, nice and slow. Tried to step out of the box for a moment. He wasn’t the Arch knight with the reputation of having the shortest training period ever for nothing.

Alright, so. Being an Yggdrasil came with a couple of things. For one, you were pretty much the head of the Order of Yggdrasil. You were also in charge of keeping track of the physical health and mental health of your fellow knights. You also kept track of their whereabouts and what dimension’s they’re in.

But, when you enter a world, you gain nearly every ability the Arch Knight has temporarily for the duration your in that world, along with knowledge of whatever fact about that world save for the future of that world. Which means…oh. _Oh_.

Eggsy smacked his own head mentally. Of course, she could see the mission briefing because she was using that ability. She could see through his eyes, ergo, she can see and hear the briefing when she’s concentrating.

Or he could be overanalyzing the hell out of this and this whole thing was a monumental accident and twist of fate. But, he liked his first theory better. More science-y.

The sound of Marie’s voice snapped Eggsy out of it as he watched his Boss apologize and thank Jane for the coffee and delightful conversation. It was really hard to believe that this woman had a hard time talking to servers at Starbucks. Much less other humans.

She greeted her goodbye as Jane went out the door, then she turned to grab the rest of her drink, which was a cases of sugar rush and cavities right there. Seriously, double chocolatey chip with whip and extra coco powder?  
Marie spotted Eggsy, who had turned his chair to see her when Jane left. Causing a thoughtless wave and greeting.

“What are you doing here Eggsy? Bit off from whatever things you agents do here yeah?”  
Eggsy snorted slightly, bidding Merlin goodbye before removing his glasses and pocketing them in his breast pocket of the suit.

“Well, you sort of crashed my mission”.

Marie gave him a pretty convincing curious and curious look, that is if she was lying, “What mission?”

“Merlin wanted me to ask that girl earlier about the SIM cards that her bosses have been collecting. You didn’t even have to do much like buying her a drink”.

“Oh, she was reading a book that I had gotten curious about. I asked her about it and one thing lead to another,” Marie shrugged midway, “I got animated about the subject and I forgot about how I hate social interaction”.

In reality, she knew that missions were one of the reasons why Eggsy was still functioning. He had an uncanny ability to push problems and baggage to the backseat when he drove. It was driving her mad as to why Eggsy wasn’t exactly in a depressed cloud yet. As far as she’s known, the more you push it back, the more it might bite you back in the ass.

Eggsy hummed as he transferred his seat to sit next to Marie, Timmy fallowed right next to him. Finishing their coffee so the cups that were given could be washed.

“We had a training mission like tha once yunno,” Eggsy said. Of course, he knew that she knew, she always did.

“Which one?”

Okay so maybe not _everything_.

“The one where Roxy and I had to get some girl to come home with us and get comfortable”.

“The one with the train?” Asked Timmy, who finished off his drink and handed it off the the awaiting waiter.  
“Yeah, tha one”.

Marie hummed as she sipped the drink through the straw, waiting for something to follow the end of that sentence.

“How would you have done it?” Eggsy asked turning to Marie, who hummed. The reason why he had doubted the genuine social interaction between her and Jane was not because of her ability to fein being comfortable. But how good she was at lying, acting, and getting what she wanted one way or another. Sometimes you couldn’t tell which was real and which was fake, and that’s what was frustrating sometimes. You just couldn’t tell with her.

“I would have stayed in the corner, where she could see me, but I wouldn’t approach her, not yet”.

She waited for the both of them to get the mental image before continuing.

“Then I would have walked in her direction, tried to talk. Stutter, than look embarrassed and walk away with my head down,” she paused again to take a sip, “seeing that she wouldn’t want to be seen as a cold hearted bitch, she’d come after me and ask if I was alright. I would answer that I was only embarrassed and would apologize that she had to come all the way here for nothing. Midway through the conversation, I would accidentally mutter out a compliment, then look down and try to walk away”.

“She would stop me, and try to buy me another drink”.

Marie shrugged, “Of course, I would refuse because I would claim that a couple friends had forced me to come and say I was walking home”.

“And I would get the information I needed and never really see her again”.

“Well thought out and simple, sounds like the kind of plan that would work,” said a voice that certainly wasn’t apart this trio of knights.

They all looked up as they saw Roxy in her suit and nodded to Eggsy, “Merlin’s calling you. The replacement for Arthur just came in and he said you need to meet him since your the one who discovered the old Arthur as traitor and killed Valentine. With Giselle on top”.

“I thought that people had to go through training first before filling in the position,” Eggsy said with slight confusion.  
“That’s what I thought too, but apparently not”.

Eggsy sighed and got up, Timmy had already left midway with Marie’s explanation. Marie got up as well, eating the last of the whip cream and following Eggsy. Roxy didn’t question it, due to the fact that Marie seemed an okay person when Merlin wasn’t in the question and Eggsy was around.

“Why are you coming?” Eggsy asked as he passed a nod to the tailor.

“I have a bad feeling about this, dunno why. So I mean to find out personally,” Marie offered in explanation. Sitting next to him in the tube.

Not surprisingly, as soon as the three arrived, Merlin looked in distaste at Marie, who grinned in return. They were both lead to the familiar shape of Arthur’s office where they entered.

The main office chair was spun around to face the fireplace behind it. Rows of Kingsman equipment sat with a dangerous glint on top of the Arthur’s desk. Merlin waited outside as he shut the door behind them.  
“Well are ya goin te show your face or wha?” Eggsy didn’t bother with the My Fair Lady kind of talk anymore. He was tired and he wanted to go home so that he could get finishing the report to Merlin..

The chair turned and Eggsy damn near choked on his own spit. His knees grew weak as Marie rushed in to keep him up.

Sitting there in Arthur’s chair was a man with a perfect suit, royal blue criss-cross tie, slick back hair and glasses with only a scratch on the side of his face.  
Sat there, was one Harry Hart, alive, breathing, and talking.

Harry smiled warmly as Eggsy’s jaw dropped, ignoring the third member in the room for the moment as he focused sorely only on Eggsy,

“Hello Eggsy, how have you been?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...hah..I did it (at the beginning of 1AM no less), and i'm slowly getting back on the horse again (not my first fanfic actually, I have another one that sort of went on the back-burner in fan fiction.net) Either way, hope you enjoyed this piece of crap and I apologize that I couldn't really write Eggsy very well. I'll try to remedy that.
> 
>  
> 
> (I also fixed the spacing on the first chapter so hopefully it's a bit easier to understand, also fixed the spacing here so yeah)


	3. Chapter 3, Explanation and Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some explanations are due, as well as killing some demon dogs.

Chapter 3, Explanation and Running

* * *

 

Eggsy wasn't sure what he was expecting at the moment, but he glared at Harry hard as he nudged his boss off.

"It's Galahad now innit?"

Marie was struggling within the confines of her own mind. On one hand, she very much would like the have Eggsy be happy, and right now the only route available to get to that would be if both Harry and Eggsy confessed to each other and stop being stubborn a-holes. In the other, she wanted nothing more than to march over in the asshole’s  face and give the bastard a good old falcon punch.

Yet she winced at Eggsy's cold, chilly tone. Describing her mind as in inner turmoil was frankly an understatement.

This path will lead Eggsy to happiness, she was sure of it. But in her bones she knew that it would also bring pain and more suffering, and she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything.

The frustrating part about the job was that one you know where things were headed, there was little you could do to change it. This is how the story is supposed to go, and the Yggdrasil 's job was to help it along. In order to get to the diamond inside of the rock...

You must break it.

It’s one of the rules when finding a person’s true character, almost every author knew that it was one of the most genuine and fastest way to represent a character’s true feelings. Under the pain, under the weight of the sky, that’s where they’re true moments are, and knowing that this was the moment where Eggsy was being tested so fast so soon, it was almost hard to keep shut about it.

However, she had a duty, and allowing Eggsy to be hurt in the process is the fastest way for him to understand himself and be happy. In this state, both she and Timmy knew that this was going to change Eggsy, for sure it was going to be for the better. He was finally going to know his place in all this. Where he was, who he is. This was a part of the story.

And she hated that she knew it.

Eggsy didn’t realize it at the time, but Timmy knew the signs. He was constantly going back and forth between a My Fair Lady English, and normal Eggsy. At nights Eggsy would get nightmares of all the people he killed. Of Harry Hart being killed over, and over again. How cold he was when he sliced open Arthur’s neck to reveal the SIM card inside. With a pen no less. Yes, Arthur was a bastard, but that didn’t stop Eggsy from doubting that he was a good brother for Lucy.

Unknowingly, Eggsy became distant towards both Lucy and his mother of all people. Eggsy no doubt thought it was because he had gotten too busy with nearly all the world’s leaders dead with brains above their nonexistent heads, but drinking was the real reason why he wanted to stay away. It was either the alcohol, or hurting Lucy and him Mum, and Eggsy would be a rotting corpse in the middle of the desert before he let that happen.

Then there was Harry Hart. Eggsy’s mentor, and a man he had grown fond of in a very short amount of time. The man Eggsy had unknowingly looked like when he took up the mantel for Galahad. Yes, he acted like his father in so many ways. The way he acted, his virtues, but his clothing, his tie, his weapon of choice, and his fucking hair. That was all Harry Hart. That was all of the man Timmy knew Eggsy loved. Even if he didn’t realize it.

Timmy knew that the friend, one of the only friends he’s ever had, was stuck between a hard and a tough place. Was he a Kingsman? Was he a brother? A son? Or was he a killer?

Timmy knew the answer, but he didn’t think anyone but himself and Marie noticed who he really was. Even if all others didn’t quite yet, it was his job to help them get there. To get them to understand who he is, why he’s who he is, to understand Eggsy as well as he does. Hell, Harry Hart was supposed to be the one who understood Eggsy better than him. The tiny looked Harry gave Eggsy. All the times when he was recovering from the blast of the bomb, watching Eggsy’s training videos. Those moments, he had hoped that there was someone out there who could know Eggsy better than he ever could.

Of course he totally didn’t hack Merlin’s data base for that information, he just used his Yggdrasil resources. Contacted the British government is all he did really.

Still, sitting in his house inside his room, he sat there watching the feed and wondering if he had been too late to help everyone see what he saw in the man.

Eggsy continued glaring at Harry, he didn’t know why he was so upset. Shouldn’t have he been jumping for joy? Greeting Harry, crying and all that dumb shit? But if he was supposed to be so happy, why did he feel so betrayed? Why did he feel like Harry had cheated him? This was confusing, it was making his head spin in all kinds of directions. His gut was hurting so much at this moment and he wanted nothing more to leave.

“Eggsy, I-”

“Oh shut it,” Eggsy said, grabbing Marie’s arm preparing to go, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I couldn’t-”

“Bullshit ya couldn’t, Merlin coulda told me too! But ‘e didn’t. So why couldn’t ‘e?” Eggsy tugged Marie along, who willingly went along, “I’m taken a vacation off this shit-”

Marie stopped at that, she had came here for two reasons. One to help Eggsy, two to make the Arthur aware of reasons as to why Eggsy may disappear every now and then.

Eggsy turned as he felt he couldn’t tug Marie anymore with a confused look, and she motioned to Harry as she gave him an apologetic look, which resulted in Eggsy’s sigh.

“Couldn’t we ‘ave Tim do it Mar?”

She gave him another look, but she sighed and nodded. Eggsy waited as she approached the full length mirror. Harry watched carefully as mumbled words were poured off the woman’s mouth as she stared down the mirror, placing her hand carefully in the center of the mirror.

“Thomas Timmy Jones, I summon thy to perform your duty as Celestial Guide”.

Timmy came out of the mirror, dusting some sort of silver mist off him, jump dust was the lingo term in the Order, before standing in the middle of the room watching Harry before turning to Marie.

“We need Merlin and Roxy in here too Mum”.

They both looked at Eggsy who gave in and nodded with a suffering sigh, “Aye, aye, i’ll stay ‘ere just a little while longer”.

“I would assume this is relating to Eggsy and Mr. Jones Ms. Marie?” Harry asked with a professional look, but under the mask, it was easy to see that Mr. Harry Hart was confused and hurt. After all, in this line of work, you need to make sure that you could read in between the masks of over thousands of stubborn heroes.

“You would be correct Mr. Hart,” she said before once again pausing to see Merlin and Roxy come in. As she motioned for all of them to sit down before sighing again while scratching her head, “how the hell am I going to do this”.

“Ye can do it tha same way ya explained it ta my Mum Boss,” Eggsy said, leaning against the door for support.

“Maybe, but your Mum ain’t three secret agents and know you as much as the next person. ‘Cept for Ms. Lancelot of course”.

Timmy sighed and got up from his position next to Eggsy, “Go on and sit down on the couch Mum- actually no. Lay down on the couch, you probably haven’t slept properly for a whole damn month, Eggsy you too- No, don’t give me those faces you two assholes, a sleep from being intoxicated does not count as proper sleep especially if you gain a hangover in the morning. Don’t make me dart you guys in the ass”.

Okay, so the dart threat did get to them because Timmy used a long ass needle to do it, pun totally not intended but there you go anyway. But as soon as they laid down on the creaky leather couch, they were out like a light. Seemed the caffeine and sugar had worn off.

“Alright, so, from the beginning, you guys better be paying attention, or recording this, whatever, because i’m only repeating this once,” Tim sighed as he rubbed his temples, “in every world, and yes that does mean alternate universes Mr. Merlin, there are two partners in each of them. An Arch Knight and a Celestial Guide”.

“An Arch Knight’s Job is to protect the world from what we call the “Darkness”, you know that whole theory on Dark Matter? There is a completely different world where animals are completely made of these things, and they're as bloodthirsty as it comes. Normally they take the shape of animals because they don’t seem as complicated as humans, it’s the Arch Knight and his fellow comrades in that dimension that are simply called Knights to kill and banish those little buckets of nightmares back into the abyss that is the Dark Matter Relm”.

“The Celestial Guide is the Arch Knight’s direct link, they are almost always friends that are like siblings. It’s the Celestial Guides job to manage good connections between Arch Knights to the HQ Yggdrasil. That mirror trick? Only a Arch Knight and a Celestial Guide could do that. Mostly because your literally crossing space and time whenever you phase through one of those things. Out of the two, the Guide is mostly the thinker between the two, usually. This isn’t really necessary, but it’s what usually happens”.

“The Yggdrasil, is our boss, and what we work to protect. In a neutral tongue, it would simply be called ‘The Great Tree’. Inside the branches of these trees are the different worlds and dimensions that spout from the central trunk of the tree. This is where the Yggdrasil has been found so far- Yes?” Tim patiently paused as Roxy raised her hand and nodded for her to ask her question.

“If that’s so, why the central nervous system? Why not at the top of the tree?”

“Ah that is a very good question, and I’ll give the answer right now Ms. Mortan. That is because all the branches come from the same place. We call it ground zero, the woman currently snoring on the couch over there is where she came from, and lives”.

Merlin raised his hand next and Timmy nodded for him to ask, “Alright, well I get why that woman was chosen, but really, she couldn’t be no more than 20 years old. Why choose her to be in the position of what I assume is your equivalent to Arthur?”

“Actually she’s not as young as she looks, if you calculated the same time her world goes around, she’s about 2 to 3 hundred years old. She doesn’t age the same way we do, which is why she is still the first Yggdrasil”.

“The Yggdrasil is the title of the head of the Order, whoever gets the Yggdrasil gains the abilities of the arch knight and his or hers partner when she comes to the universe you're in charge of.. She takes care of us, feeds us, makes sure where all right, and talks to us. While that may not be relevant,  but when you're separated by something that other people seem to not see, by everyone thinking that you were the boy who cried wolf. Acting as a ventilation system was actually one of the few things keeping us sane”.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” Harry said honestly, Eggsy was well loved by those around him, how could disbelief and ‘invisible’ barriers. Timmy sighed as he predicted what could possibly be going around the three Kingman’s heads, it wasn’t that hard.

“Yes, that seems to be the case with most of you isn’t it? Well, it’s hard to explain anyway, so I won’t really bother with it. The main thing is, she’s in charge of taking care of anyone in the Order of Yggdrasil, but come to think of it,” Timmy tapped his chin in mid-thought, “It’s actually bad if she does come to fight”.

“What do you mean?” Roxy asked, curiosity peaked.

“Despite the pretty much laid back attitude she generally has, she’s the best sword fighter in the order. Not only is her sword pretty much scary, she can wield nearly anything with deadly decision. She’s an author after all, that imagination doesn’t go to nothing. In theory, you could kill anyone with anything, she just makes it possible. Not to mention she’s pretty scary when she’s pissed off,” Timmy gave Merlin a calculating look, “which you really shouldn’t try. Honestly, the last thing that pissed her off never came back. We don’t even remember what the think was, but we’re assuming it was a black matter monster”.

“Okay, so each member of the order has a sword specially made for them, course sword’s just a general name for the weapon, it can vary in what type. Like I have a pretty damn beautiful rapier, Eggsy has a really nice broadsword, I know a guy who has a gun, lot’s of different types,” Timmy stopped at that, “that’s all I could reveal to you without actually putting you three through training, and only Marie is allowed to actively recruit people. We can recommend, but since both Eggsy and I are still new to the whole gig, we can’t exactly recommend right away”.

“When were you recruited?”

“Ah...about maybe six months ago? I’m not too sure really,” Tim said tapping his chin again, “It was pretty fast when Eggsy and I did it”.

Harry was about to ask a question when an alarm sounded loudly in the center of the room, causing Marie and Eggsy to jump, while Eggsy had a gun out, Marie had a slim sword at the ready, the blade was black with blue sapphires at the hilt, the handle looked like the trunk of a tree as it lead to the fuller, or blood groove, that lead upwards to the point of the sword. She looked both panicked and calm, which was hard to achieve when you're carrying around a sword.

She stared into what appeared to be air when she cursed and grabbed Eggsy, “Shit, we need to get out of here, now”.

“What’s the sitch?” Timmy said, grabbing a hold of Roxy’s elbow, who grabbed Harry, who grabbed Merlin, as Timmy followed Marie and Eggsy out the door.

“Darkness, inside the damn mansion, I should of known two fairly knew Knights should have attracted attention,” said Marie, cursing as she led the group to what she knew was the garage where all the fancy vehicles were.

“What class?”

“Mid range, from the alert, we’re lucky that they couldn’t sent titan sized, but let’s not jinx it,” Marie said, diving in to an imported Ford 2003, probably modified, explorer.

“Oh hell yes, I always knew you Kingsman had good taste,” she hopped into the passenger’s seat as the rest filed into the seats. Due to his size, Timmy went in third row and climbed in, Eggsy claimed the driver’s seat , while the rest of Kingsman claimed the second row.

Once everyone claimed they were all set, Eggsy floored it and got out of the mansion as soon as the gas would go, causing them to speed out at 70 miles per hour.

“How the bloody hell did you know how to find the garage?!” Yelled Merlin.

“I REMEMBER ALL THE DETAILS OF WHAT I NEED TO KNOW, IT’S LIKE HAVING A PERSONAL LIBRARY IN YOUR HEAD”.

“BOSS, EGGSY, THEY’RE RIGHT ON OUR FUCKING COAT TAILS”/

“MOTHA FUCKIN SHIT,” Marie opened the window as she popped her seat belt and sat on the window, the sword switching to a long range rifle before the eyes of the Kingsmen.

“IT SWITCHES FOR PROFICIENCY, ALL KNIGHT WEAPONS COULD DO IT, IT’S JUST THAT SOME OF US PREFER A CERTAIN WEAPON, BUT IN ALL, WE ALL KNOW HOW TO USE A GUN AND A SWORD,” Timmy explained to the Kingsman over the wind.

“TIMMY GUV, NOW’S NOT THE BEST TIME FOR FACTOIDS!” Yelled Eggsy over the wind and recoil sounds from Marie firing.

“RIGHT”.

Timmy made a motion of pulling a sword from his side as he pulled out a rapier, then made a swift motion as it became a smaller handgun and popped the back window.

At the site of Harry attempting to pull his gun out from the rear mirror, Eggsy yelled over the noise, “DON’T EVEN BOTHER, DARKNESS CAN’T BE KILLED BY ANY NORMAL STUFF, IT HAS TO BE YGGDRASIL KNIGHT ISSUED”.

All three Kingsman took off their belts and turned to see what the hell the two knights were killing anyway, and they almost regretted the decision.

Being picked off one by one was a mass of what looked like black mist that formed into dogs wolves, and other unpleasant animals. About as tall as a large dog, they all sped their way after the car that was doing up near 90 miles per hour, the every now and then, two would be taken out by the duo who was killing anything that got too close.

Since they took off their seat belts, their teeth grinded under the pressure as the road under them was filled with odd potholes, and the occasional bump.

“HOLY SHIT!” Merlin yelled as one shadow dog got too close and manage to ram the car slightly, scratching the paint, which was an instant trigger for Marie to shoot it in the face.

“GO BACK TO DARK REALM YA PIECES OF SHIT!” She yelled as she fired five consecutive shots. All of them taking out all five of what was left of the pack that was running after them. Now there were no more, for now.

“Um, Mom owns a 2003 Ford Explorer, just so you know,” Timmy said, making his sword vanish.

“It’s why she got so pissed, is what Tim meant,” Eggsy further explained, taking a left turn.

“It’ll take a bit of an hour to drive out back to the city,” Marie said with a sigh, making her own weapon disappear with a flash before putting her seat belt back on, “we’ll see if the good ole’ british government could help us out, but for now, get some sleep. You’re gonna need it”.

“All do respect mam,” Roxy said, following her example and putting her seatbelt back on, “but I think we’re all too wired to start sleeping”.

“I kind of expected that,” Marie said sighing, “Oh well, got any questions for me?”

“Rifle?”

“I once trained with a US Marine, taught me some useful shit”.

“How’s your sword fighting?”

“Mum’s the best damn sword fighter in Yggdrasil, didn’t I tell you guys that?”

“I wanted to hear it from…”.

“The horse’s mouth? Well, what Timmy said was pretty close I suppose, i’m not that good”.

“Boss, you recruit heroes, secret agents, soldiers, mutants, aliens, vampires, and other things throughout the cosmos, and you're tellin me tha’ all the people you’ve ever recruited and trained actually beat you in a sword fight?”

“...No, not yet, not even you”.

“See? You’ve faced Marines, superheroes, special agents, knights from all periods and dimensions, and yet you're the best with the blade”.

“Provided that you also developed a technique that would hinder any real person from actually beating you with it. A technique that only you could master truly”.

“Well, you and Eggsy did”.

“We’re far from experts Mom”.

“In time, and practice”.

“Now you're starting to sound like a sensei”.

“Not my fault you lot seem to be pushing the fact that I seem to be the best swordsman in all the branches of Yggdrasil”.

“How old are you?” Roxy interrupted when she found a pause.

“Um...in your years, I think I maybe around 18?”

“18?”

 “Hundred thousand,” Timmy corrected.

 “Technically i’m 33 in my world”.

“What year? In your world I mean”.

 “Can’t reveal that dear, sorry, security reasons, it’s hard to track anyway. I’d have to think about a lot of things before i’d get it to you, even if you qualified for the information”.

“Nationality?”

 “Filipino American”.

 “College?”

 “Oxford University for Literature, Arts, and History”.

 “Doctorates?”

 "Yes, all three”.

“Teacher?” 

“Ehm, lecturer, part time animator, and full time author, and or, screenwriter”.

“Kids?”

“Only those I seem to recruit”.

“Husband?”

 “None”.

“Boyfriend?”

 “None”.

 “...Girlfriend?”

 “Nope”.

“Wife?”

“Nope”.

 “Female or Male?”

 “Female, born like that too, but my attitude can be conflicting”.

“Birds or the bees?”

“Both”.

 “Uh…”

 “Run out of questions for Boss Rox?”

 “Kinda”.

“You know Mom’s pretty good at lying,” Tim added.

“I swear over all the books and all the video collection box sets i’ve ever owned that I did not lie one bit in the unexpected Spanish Inquisition”.

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

“Good job Timmy, my reference was not put in vain”.

“You better believe it’s genuine Rox, Boss doesn’t kid when it comes down to her books, and she’s owned some pretty rare ones. Even more when it comes to her library of videos and films”.

“Benefits of knowing a few time travellers and owning some cash”.

“Alright, do you have any questions? Arthur? Merlin?” Roxy asked after the initial interview. Marie was perfectly aware what it was, it wasn’t exactly a subtle 20 questions.

“How good are you at technology?” Merlin asked, taking the opportunity to find out how exactly he could hack into the phone.

“Not the best, but that phone you seem to be curious about is encrypted by one of the best of the Order, not gonna happen any time soon dear, sorry”.

“And here I thought you were going to stop being an ass”.

“Not yet, I got stuff to do, and you have my respect to slowly gain. While the DD’s may cause some shit to hit the fan, but I have priorities”.

“DD’s?”

Timmy opened his mouth to answer but Eggsy got there first.

“It’s our short term for the things that were chasin after us, we call ‘em Dark Dogs”.

Timmy gave Eggsy a look through the mirror, which Eggsy simply shrugged at with a small smile pulling at his lips,

“Hey, you can’t be the only one spittin out factoids Gov, Rox’s gonna think you're the only smart one between the two of us. Boss doesn’t count, that’s just going to make us look stupid”.

“And the others?” Their opinions, he meant.

Eggsy paused before answering, “Hindi naman kelangan”.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Tim and Marie translated. Ah, shit, and the conversation was going so well. They thought they had made progress, suppose it was still going to take some work. However long time that takes. After all, tagalog isn’t one of the languages you're normal Kingsman would learn. Not unless you were Harry Hart, and something in his chest cracked a little.

“Any other questions?”

“Yes, what do you mean by ‘British Government’? If I may ask that is,” Harry said, his seat belt back in it’s rightful place, long before the others even noticed, and also trying to keep his voice steady with Eggsy’s response.  

“Ah, well, it’s what we all call the guy these days,” Marie said with a chuckled, trying to subtly lighten the mood, “he’s a bit of a stickler with a ruler stuck too far up his ass, but he’s still a good guy. Despite what his brother may say”.

“I kind of miss the smart ass to be honest,” Timmy said catching on, and the two familiar fellow knights were kind of one of their good friends and elders in the job, “he played some pretty badass chess”.

“Yeah Tim? Which one?” Eggsy said, “There’s kind of two, not counting the six of us that are in this car”.

“Har har Eggs, you know I mean the one who’s head over heals with the good doctor”.

“Oh that one, yeah. ‘E was kinda charmin once you get over the fact that he thinks everyone but Boss over there are idiots. The doctor not included ‘course”.

“And Brit Gov’ with the inspector, those two claim to be sooo different, but nope. They could be better described with the same damn thing. Just that one sips tea with the Queen,” Timmy said with a snort, “honestly, the man can run the British government single handedly and still be in before afternoon tea”. 

“And one was naked in buckingham palace,” Marie added with a snort, “he could also solve a dead end case in one bored afternoon. Shooting his own wall in the process due to what he claims is ‘boredom’ “. 

“Who the bleedin hell are you lot talking about?” Merlin said with a sigh. The three of them exchanged looks with a grinned, in scary synch. It was like the three got out of creep out people course, expert edition, and they repeated the action once again with the next line, 

“You’ll see, soon enough”.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tadaa, chapter three. This is a little shorter than the last one, but I couldn't sneak any more in without corrupting my plans. So -cackles- you'll have to find out later~ 
> 
> Also, i've dropped plenty of hints as to who the two other knights are, but i'll give another hint just in case, these two characters are popular in both books, movies, AND television. Hopefully it shouldn't be that difficult.


	4. Chapter 4, 221B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finally arrive at 221B Baker Street, meeting other knights in the Order. Yet something is still brewing in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh! So sorry this is late! I've gotten busy with starting school again, and i've been too packed up with stress to even try to sit down and complete the chapter -bows- sorry -bows again- really sorry. None the less, I hope you like the chapter!

Chapter 4, 221B

* * *

The six passengers waited in silence as Eggsy took a turn to the right, finally getting back to London. Kingsman should have considered an emergency exit back to London in their plans when they were building the place.

“Mar,” Eggsy said to break the silence that had been so eerily daunting them since the end of the Spanish Inquisition.

“Mm?” Marie turned to Eggsy, who kept his eyes focused on the road, an American car in London streets wasn’t exactly the most covert of vehicles.

“Why now? It’s been nearly a year since they tried to attack this place, is it because ‘Art came back?” 

“Honestly Eggsy, I don’t know,” Marie said with a sigh, “as much as we are aware of these things, we’re also kept in the dark. Things like this are one of them, for all I know, they could be here because they thought that two fresh knights and one old one looked like the greatest feast to ‘em”.

“How’s...Er, you know”.

“You mean Jackson? He’s fine, as far as I know. He hasn’t told me of any complications, and his heart beats are regular despite keeping close contact with them,” Marie looked out into the night of London, “I still worry about him though, his emotions are still wacky even after two months”.

Roxy turned to Timmy as the two in the front had their quiet conversation, "So, what's the history between you and Eggsy?"

Timmy looked at her and shrugged, "Honestly, we've only known each other for two, maybe three and a half years. But I suppose you could say we've bonded through trauma".

"You two seem so close though".

"Maybe, but that's to the outside person, my parents were never home, so when I moved out I forgot about them, but Eggsy," Timmy gave a wide grin, "he cares for his friends, his family so much. I got curious, so I got to know him through Marie. I met his Mum, his cute little sister, and I understood why. He's got this air about him you see. I can't really explain it, but I felt happy as long as Eggsy was happy".

"Sound's like you two are one ring away from being married,” Roxy said with a sly grin.

Timmy snorted at the thought with quiet laughter, "Na. He maybe a good friend, and I do care for him. But we're sort of like brothers from different families. I just like for Eggsy to be happy because he deserves it, simple as that. Well, okay, normally you don’t usually find out that two guys who are friends fight shadow monsters for a half living, but then again you don’t usually find out that he’s a secret agent either, but you know what I mean. Family doesn’t end in blood and all that".

"He has that aura about him, yeah I understand," Roxy said nodding.

“I was going to say that it was either the fact that Eggsy is too damn selfless to even forget about his Mum and his sister for one, or possibly the Eggsy charm, but that’ll work too. That is, if he had any charm, I can’t really speak for him in that area”.

“I can hear you too in there, you know tha’ right?” Eggsy called as he pulled turned again, by this time, the five other passengers just about lost track how many turns they took. How did they get from the Kingsmen manor to here in such a short amount of time anyway? Well, they supposed with what was happening, time flies.

“Yeah, I know that, that’s why didn’t mention the incident when RJ came over for a bit to catch a break”.

“It was an accident and you, him, and I bloody well know it”.

“Well, in fairness, if you hadn’t pushed him off that pier, we would have never known that the “shadow dogs” had gotten around going “shadow sharks”,” Marie added, which had Eggys smirking at Tim, but Tim had a look in his eye that clearly shown that he knew something.

“But, you did know that RJ can’t really stand being fussed over, which just became the reaction of the crowd when you threw him over”.

“MAR!”

“HAH!”

“Yes, I remember, RJ didn’t talk to you for nearly a week. The only way he ever forgave you for that was Karaoke, I think he has it saved too”.

“I was bloody drunk!”

“Eggsy, what sort of drunk strips down to nothing but his pants*?” Timmy said with a raised eyebrow from the back.

“Don’t make me turn this around!”

“Oh go ahead, let us face the foul beast's head on! Just like old times eh Mum?”

“How the bleedin’ ‘ell are you considered the ‘nice’ one?,” Eggsy grumbled with a deep frown. 

“Jedi in the streets, Sith in the sheets Eggs, simple as that”.

“Oh shut up, you haven’t shagged anyone since you were born”.

The three Kingsman tried to stop the argument, but Marie grinned and waved it off. She pulled out her phone and swiftly texted something to Merlin.

Don’t worry, their way of blowing off steam when their bored, it actually gets pretty funny sometimes, but this is just a regular bitch fest.

Merlin showed the text to the rest of them as they followed the argument that went back and forth. Though it was kind of odd how the two went back and forth like this.

“And was that Princess any better Eggs?”

“Well, actually she was kind of- How the ‘ell did you know that? You haven’t been hacking into Kingsmen again have you? I thought you were over that time of your life”.

“Of course not, what kind of bored hacker do you think I am? I hacked directly in the British government, obviously”.

“He’s going to murder you and hide the body pretty damn well, you know that right?”

“Not if I tell him his brother’s the one who requested it, besides, it was a favor for Old Man Hayden. You know he doesn’t really like doing all the things he tells him to do, so he just asked for some info and I got it for him, besides, not like you can do any better you pants wearing drunk”.

“Really? I’m sure you're a worse drunk than me Timothy”.

“Perhaps, but the world will never know, since you know, I don’t like alcohol Gary”.

“Whose Old Man Hayden?” Roxy asked as she attempted to understand the conversation, which was kind of useless given the present situation, but still, the more she knew.

“Homeless Hayden, Celestial Guide in the order, Hayden’s gender neutral so we all agreed, and yes, that includes Hayden himself, keep it a male pronoun to prevent confusion, originally, Hayden’s born a girl, but “Old Man Hayden” is kind of an inside joke for us knights because the Two Arch Knights Hayden’s in charge off don’t know yet. As far as those two know, Hayden’s just a homeless guy that just happens to be their Celestial Guide,” Marie explained.

“Just how many people are in the Order?” Merlin asked out of curiosity, since Kingsman does have quite a number of members, only about five have official Knight names, and are official agents.

“Oh, couple million actually. Counting Arch Knights, Guides, and just Knights, plus we probably have maybe, over a dozen knights in different places, and different dimensions. Planets, and the like,” Marie said, adjusting the seat belt, “it’s a bit complicated to keep track of everyone, but you get used to it”.

“Keeping track of all of us isn’t actually as hard as it would seem, if I understand correctly it was sort of like watching TV all day all week, or if you want to get fancy, every time there’s an anomaly in our health, she get’s this instinct and she usually knows what to do”.

“Of course there is a side effect to that,” Tim admitted, “it’s a complete pain in the arse when we have a cold, and an even worse when one of us gets seriously injured”. 

“There’s actually a running system that allows these idiotic bastards to hide their health from me,” Marie muttered darkly, glaring at both Timmy and Eggsy whom wisely averted their gaze.

"Well, we're 'ere," Eggsy said, pulling up to a rather nostalgic street, "221B Baker Street".

"What significance does that have to do with us?"  Merlin asked with a raised eyebrow as the three simultaneously unbuckled their seat belts. Probably a product of countless years of having to ditch, and Roxy's been on enough missions to make the act seem effortless and full of grace.

"I assume you three know Mycroft Holmes?" Marie said as she stepped out and stretched herself like a cat, at the nods she motioned for either Timmy or Eggsy to take over as she twisted her back. Causing a few pops as air was released from the stiff joints.

"This," Timmy raised a hand as he yawned into his fist, causing a chain reaction as other people started yawning, including Eggsy, "is the flat of his younger brother, Sherlock Holmes, and his "friend" John Watson". 

"How're we gonna get in Boss?" Eggsy said as he slipped off his suit jacket. Marie looked up, then down, then tilted her right ear up, smiling and shaking her head after whatever she did was done.

"He's not home Eggsy, neither is John, and neither is Mrs. Hudson, Hayden might be".

"How could you tell?" Harry asked curiously, trying to spot something that would indicate the tenants inside being absent.

 She pointed on the window, "It's almost at the evening and the lights aren't on, but of course they could be taking naps or doing investigation right? This is Sherlock and John we're talking about. But then, there hasn't been any major homicide cases, neither have there been a rather curious case lately. If there's one thing I know best, it's how my knights usually act, when Sherlock gets bored, he gets B. O. R. E. D. No gunfire, seriously, don't ask, and neither is their any yelling".

 "Besides," She turned around and hopped onto the steps as the moon grew higher in the sky, "Mrs. Hudson is on vacation due to her kidnapping, ergo, John and Sherlock are gone to see her off, but that was how to tell, even if you didn't have that info. Even then, I'd say...ohhh 80 percent chance I'm right?"

 "Probably 85 percent Mum," Timmy said, walking towards the door. Marie shrugged and motioned for Eggsy to knock on the door. 

Before he got a chance to even touch the door, it opened revealing a person with green eyes that peered at them through the door, from the dangling hairs, it seemed whoever this was had recently exited the shower.

“Hey Old Man Hayden!” Eggsy said with a grin. At that, Hayden broke out a grin of his own before opening the door wider and making beckoning motions towards the five of them. As they walked in, he gave a respectful nod to Marie and a fist bump to Timmy, however he simply raised an eyebrow towards the three agents. Turning to Marie, he motioned towards the three with a questioning look.

“We ran into some shades at their HQ, so we needed to place to stay where we haven’t been before, nah, correction, we haven’t been here in a long ass time,” Marie said shortly, “did you refill their eatable substances? I don’t want to see another head in the fridge, yet again”.

“Sherlock put a head in the fridge? Again? I would think that the first time would be the last time, figured he’s just get a mini fridge for himself” Timmy said as he crashed head first on the well worn couch that appeared.

 “I’m sorry, but are those bullet holes?” Roxy pointed at the happy face shape on the wall, accented by yellow paint and made by bullet holes.

The three made a long, suffering sigh before nodding.

“I thought you were going to get tha’ bastard to fix it Hay,” Eggsy said, settling down on one of the vacant chairs, “tha’s been up there for months”.

Hayden shrugged, and raised his shoulders as if saying, ‘Hey, what can you do?’ before walking into the kitchen to perhaps, grab some food. Or possibly make sure that Marie doesn’t find another body part in the fridge.

“Is this normal for the three of you?” Harry asked Eggy, who responded with a solid nod before frowning.

 “Well, considering the circumstances, I don’ think tha’ anything we do tha’ you see is normal Arthur”.

 Harry inwardly winced, so he was still on code name basis then. This wasn’t going to be a short apology, neither was it going to be a painless one. Merlin shoved Harry off to the side as a show comfort. Harry could admit while the notion was appreciated, he had half a mind to shove the man off a window. Merlin after all was the one who sent him off on a recovery mission before allowing him to get back to Kingsman. While Paris was beautiful, he had a Eggsy who undoubtedly saw the whole scene that he still needed to explain about what happened. Given that he got away from the gunshot with only a scar to the side of his face.

“Eggsy I-”

“BLOODY FUCKING HELL, WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE ACTUAL SHIT MAN, WHY IS THERE A FREAKING DICK IN THIS FRIDGE?!”

Eggsy and Tim turned to each other before sharing a long, suffering sigh and sinking themselves further into the worn couch that the two had shared. The five guests in the living room of the flat heard the heavy footfalls that was probably Marie, that was before they heard a window shatter.

As the three agents immediately got up from pure Kingsman instinct, Timmy waved a hand across his neck with a look that clearly said, “Not worth it”.

They once again relaxed into the room, despite the two steps that indicated that one was pissed off and one was slightly in a panic. Harry didn’t even bother to try to apologize to Eggsy, not with everyone in the living room like this. He would apologize the best time he’ll get. Once he set his mind to do just that, a voice rang from behind the door they had just entered a few minutes ago.

“That was boring”.

There was a blur of movement, and the next thing they knew a tall man in a black trench coat and a blue scarf was pushed up against the wall by a very pissed of looking Marie.

 Roxy leaned towards Eggsy and whispered, “Does she have a thing with the male penis or what?”

“Na,” Eggsy whispered back, “she’s slightly OCD though, so what goes in the fridge in the kitchen is hereby declared in her mind strictly food or something for food”.

“William. Sherlock. Scott. Holmes. Why the **fucking hell** does your fridge have a **dick**?” Marie growled under her breath.

 John frowned at Sherlock, “You said that was bread!”

“Ah, mislip?” Sherlock said with a shrug, hiding the fact that he was in fact fairly panicked at the very pissed off Boss, however, he couldn’t help but ask, “what did you do with it then?”

Marie released him while grumbling to herself, a wise and careful Hayden creeping out from upstairs (how did he get there anyway?) to hear what how the others would react when they discover what happened to the body part. She glared at him as she sat down next to Timmy and Eggsy, “I threw it out the window”.

At that they all choked on their own spit and gave her a look of both horror and perhaps slight fear, _“In the middle of the street?”._

 “Yep”.

“With people walking by”.

 “Yap”.

“With little kids about and about with their parents”.

“You bet’cha”.

“You can be so nonchalant Marie,” John said exasperated.

“Don’t you guilt me in this John, you're supposed to be the one regularly checking the fridge for body parts”.

“We we’re busy with Mrs. Hudson’s kidnapper!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. Was that an excuse or just a statement?”

“Boss, how long did you stay up late this time?” Eggy asked from his corner of the bed, “you're not that bad when you don’t find food in the bridge”.

“....two weeks?”.

Timmy frowned, “While that habit should definitely be improved upon, that doesn’t sound out of the ordinary. What else could it be?”

Sherlock shrugged, “It’s because it’s Steak Saturday, obviously. No steak in the fridge is most likely the reason she’s more deranged than usual”.

“Tch,” slumping forward in her seat, a deep set frown stuck on her face as she simply decided to ignore the snickering group of Yggdrasil knights.

“Jerks,” she muttered darkly, “so going to send the queen here to knight you Sherlock. So going to do it. So help me. I’ll do it when I’m on vacation. That way no one will get in my way”.

“Mum, you know you're not actually going to do it right?” a suddenly concerned Tim said. While to others, it may have been a joke to be taken lightly, one must always double check when it came to Marie, and potential ways her plans may go. Writer’s mind after all, kill without being caught. Hurt without harming. Sometimes there’s a real gray area between a writer, and a potential serial killer.

“Maybe, maybe not. Who knows,” she said with a shrug. The deep set frown still there as she pulled out her phone and started typing rapidly. 

“Sherlock?” Eggsy turned to hear the verdict as soon as he said the consulting detective’s name.

“Her poker face is nearly as good as mine, better than Mycroft of course,” Sherlock said in answer as he took his seat on his own couch. The others having moved to what was considered the “Client” couch.

“So what’s the problem Marie? I didn’t think you’d be here simply for Mrs. Hudson's’ kidnapping, despite it being quite the major event, we would have taken care of it eventually,” John said referring to the three of the new group. Which was Hayden, Sherlock, and himself in case you didn’t know.

“The problem is tha’ fact tha’ the shade commin up after all three years,” Eggsy said, “have you three seen any on your parts?”

 “Not any I could think of, no. I mean, it’s been quiet these past few years since we had the horrid battle on Paradox island,” John said shrugging.

 “I’m going to get something to drink,” Marie said suddenly, getting up to go the kitchen.

“There’s-”

“Nothing there,” Sherlock finished right after Marie left the room, “despite the rather eccentric nature, she’s better the way she is now than after Paradox island”.

“What happened on Paradox island?” Roxy asked Eggsy quietly, as they all watched Harry suddenly get up and walk in the direction towards the kitchen. 

John smiled gently before pulling a grim face, “A lot of knights died on Paradox island, it was a war with the shades of sorts. All of us, the Celestials and the Arch Knights survived, but many of the knights died that day. In this side of the universe at least”.

 “She’s like a Arthur Rox,” Eggsy explained, “she fights like a real badass, but she still has ta watch people die. It’s not a ‘appy thing ta see people die. Over an’ over again”.

In The Kitchen:

Marie stood nearly the window of the kitchen, looking out at the night sky. The sun had went down nearly hours ago, but never the less. 

“I suppose it’s a nice night,” Harry said leaning on the wall, his jacket was casted out in the living room of the flat. Leaving him with only his button down Kingsman issue Oxford cotton shirt and Charcoal wool-flanel trousers.

Marie snorted at the attempt of starting conversation, “Yeah, if you like the light pollution. I thought you Kingsman guys were all supposed to be all suave and shit”.

Harry backed off slightly at the hostility that rose silently in her voice, she didn’t even turn to face him on the conversation when she spoke. Simply kept on watching the cars go by.

“You think I’m not pissed off about Eggsy? Did you even see how he was before he went to that fucking office?”

“I-”

“Bullshit, you knew this was going to happen,” Marie turned fully to face Harry. Her brown eyes were black in the low light of the kitchen, yet her tone was completely flat and monotone throughout the whole conversation. Which was more unnerving if you had asked Harry at that moment, “you knew Eggsy’s dad before you knew Eggsy. You also know how his Mum is. You sure as hell got an idea of how he could have reacted with your sudden death”.

Marie paused and ran a hand through her hair with a heavy sigh, looking off into the room that was the brightest, which was the livingroom, as the two groups exchanged stories of one another. Merlin didn’t attend the festivities, but never the less, he laughed at the exploits of a young Eggsy and Timmy. As well as Sherlock’s hilarious opinions of what happened, at least to Merlin it was funny anyway.

“So you finally dropped the act”.

At that she carefully lifted her head enough to see that Harry’s shoulders were a tad slumped. Finally relaxed despite the non dangerous atmosphere that was radiating from the living room.

“Technically, no. I just sobered up for a bit,” Marie admitted with a shrug. Lowly she muttered to herself, “I don’t drop the act that much anymore”.

“I was thinking I would have to enrage you before you dropped the act, or at the very least confront me about it” Harry winced slightly at that, and it appeared to Marie that he had not heard her silent comment, “Which I have to admit I wasn’t willing to do. I might end up in the hospital again”.

“Ah, so you do remember me at the party,” Marie mused, her tone not all as friendly as it seemed, but there was a slight fondness that was there in spite of that.

**Flashback:**

Marie slightly scowled at the New Years Party they were throwing in the privacy of the Empire State Building. She wasn’t going to go, but she needed to stay close for the duration of a certain friend’s stay in their place. In actually, she was actually supposed to be at home, in her little nook of the Yggdrasil tree, slipping on some Halo Halo as she watched the ball drop in her little small house in Southern California. Along with her cousins and some of her friends. None the less, she couldn’t come. Her excuse being work. Which was in fact partially true.

“Say, what’s a pretty young thing like you sitting here for?”

She glared up at the man who offered, if the ring and the slight whiskey smell on his breath, obviously this man had too much to drink.

“No one particularly important, but I suggest you get back to you're wife”.

“Why you little-”

“My apologize, is this particular guest giving you trouble?” A man with light brown hair and rather suave glasses interrupted the two of them.

“It’s about time-”

“No, though I do suggest he do go home before he does anything foolish,” Marie nodded to the man, who at the moment was wearing a pretty standard waiters uniform.

“Will do ma’m,” the man nodded.

The man attempted to grip her as she walked away, but she managed to maneuver so that she would hyperextend his shoulder. Letting the man go before heading towards the elevator that would lead to the highest floor you’d get to for the night. He couldn’t leave until her friend was done here, so she decided to wait out the party.

“Ma’m,” the waiter came back up with her apparently, offering a glass of champagne. She sighed and took the glass, pressing it to her lips, but not drinking the contents of the champagne.

She let her eyes slowly close and went limp, feeling the waiter catch her and carry her off.

This is why she couldn’t attend parties.

When she woke, she found herself tied up on a chair. While the tie was rather loose, the chair was wood, judging from the feel of the grain on her fingers.

They could do better, Marie thought as sunk her head low enough to get the blindfold off her eyes. It wasn’t exactly necessary, her legs weren’t tied down to the chair, so she could’ve used it to take of the fold easily, but hey, just to make a show.

“You are a mystery ma’am,” came the voice of the waiter. She rolled her eyes at the man, giving the man a look from where the sound came from. While it was a close space, she could still tell where the sound was still coming from.

“What sort of person today would have no birth records, no tickets, not a single blip of the radar”.

The kind that has to run an organization for a part time job? That would be fun if she said it, then the guy was going to be really weirded out.

“Dunno, like maybe,” she pretended to think about it, “a Kingsman agent? Oh sorry, that’s you're schtick”.

The waiter gave her a bewildered look as he stepped out into the light to stare.

She lifted herself, the chair still attached, and smashed the wooden chair on the floor, freeing herself from the rope.

“You know, you could have taken me to some remote location, but seriously,” she gave the agent a look, “the old asylum of all places? We’re not in a horror movie you know”.

“How did you-”

“If you're going to lace my champagne, make sure to check whether or not I liked alcohol first dumbo. Well, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, since I don’t exactly leave a paper trail,” she shrugged as she went to the door and kicked it open.

“See ya ‘round Mr. Harry ‘Art,” she called out in a mock accent before leaving. Disappearing through the nearby pieces of a broken mirror.

 That bastard owes me today, she thought sourly.

**End Flashback**  

“The guy you were following was Sherlock, owed me for that day, he had to take care of some stuff, and Mycroft decided to invite him to New York,” she shrugged, “He wanted to stay out of it in respite to his brother, but Mycroft threatened him with a visit from the Queen. So he asked me to go in his place, that way, Mycroft can’t say no without sounding like a complete jackass, even if I know why he was being a jackass”.

“I suspected why, instead of him going, you went instead,” Harry mused, “I suppose I got my answer now”.

“Indeed, now that I think of it, it was probably Mycroft who had asked you to tail Sherlock that day if he came, but since I was there and Sherlock wasn’t...well, you know that story already don’t you?” She turned her head and silently glared at Harry, “but don’t think this little trip down memory lane has made me forgot what you did”.

“As much as i’d hate to admit,” Marie sat in one of the kitchen chairs that was empty, “Eggsy needs you in his life to heal. It’s how things are supposed to go around here- and don’t bother trying to get the answer out me”.

“After all the shit we’ve been through today, there are two things you need to know,” Marie leaned off the counter and started walking back towards the living room, “One: I don’t always tell someone what I know, my job is to help guide things on the proper path, and sometimes that calls for secrecy. Secondly: It is not my job to mend the burned down bridge between you and Eggsy, that’s between you and him. I’m only here to make sure Eggsy doesn’t do anything,” she bit her lip, “drastic”.

“Good night Mr. Hart, tomorrow, the nine of us are going to the Yggdrasil HQ,” Marie called out off her shoulder as she set off.

“Nine? There are only seven people in this apartment”.

Marie paused in midstep as she turned around, “Two more people are coming, and three possibly four of us eight people, are going to the Headquarters to train so you can help us keep an eye out”.

“See you tomorrow Hart,” Marie gave a short, evil, grin as she turned back around, “we’ll see just how far you're willing to go for Eggsy's forgiveness, he doesn't forget easily, I'll tell you that".

Harry stared after the young lady as she went back to the living room with a cheerful smile on her face. Even he could sense a very...tiring moment in his future. He breathed deeply, he got himself into this mess, he is going to get out of it himself. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, there that was. I hope you enjoyed this awful jumble of words of mine ^.^' I'll try to get chapter five as soon as I can!
> 
> Thanks for reading~ Have a good day/night/morning~


	5. Chapter 5, The Observatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast, Introductions, and Traveling; Oh my!

Chapter 5, The Observatory

* * *

 

Eggsy woke up a lot earlier than most of the people inside the apartment, but he had woken up to the smell of bacon and eggs being cooked.

Walking down, he discovered the cook humming as she transferred the last of the bacon onto eleven plates. The kitchen island was somehow made to fit eleven people comfortably (namely a lot of things being pushed up to the side) impressively enough. Eggsy hummed along to the tune as he went to cupboard under the kitchen sink where most of the clean plates were. Kept there by John of course, even though it’s Mrs. Hudson who kept it clean.

“Hey Eggz,” Marie croaked. Eggsy smiled a little, she was never really good in the mornings.

“Morning Boss,” Eggsy responded, grabbing the newly brewed coffee that laid on the

kitchen table.

“Is there coffee around here? Eggsy if you drank all of it I swear-” Timmy growled as he stepped down from the staircase in a white t-shirt and black trousers. His hair was barely combed back to be kept from his face, uncovered by the glasses which were presumebly left in the room Eggsy, Roxy and Timmy shared the night before.

“How’s Rox?”

“Sleeping still,” Timmy said, grabbing the offered coffee, “still asleep from all the excitement last night”.

“Ma,” Tim said, gulping down a good chug of coffee, “are we making the three of them knights?”

“The same time as Brit gov’s guy?” Eggsy asked as he finished setting the table, sitting down near the head of the table.

“Probably, if they want to,” Marie said, “I haven’t trained that many people at once in a long time. Honestly, they’ll probably get through training faster, but i’m curious as to how it’ll turn out”.

“Doesn’t that mean that we’ll be helping train some of them?” Tim asked, finally taking the time to fix his hair to a public worthy state before putting his glasses back onto his nose (how it got from the room to his hand was rather questionable). Eggsy hummed, his own hair was still a little muzzled, but it didn’t look bad. Mostly because he got to sleep on the bed next to Roxy. Timmy had taken to the floor, willingly. Claiming to want to be “the first one out”.

“Yeah, I need Sherlock, and John to stay here. They’re both Arch Knights and John knows how to jump mirrors,” Marie slouched in her seat as she said this, leaning into her clenched fist, “besides. He’ll probably shoot Sherlock himself before he let’s Sherlock get shot”.

“They do work nicely together that way,” Timmy hummed.

“Did boss cook?” John said as he came down, yawning and scrubbing at his eyes. His hair was wet around the face, giving the tell tail sign that he had just washed his face. Sherlock came behind him, looking like he hadn’t really slept at all (not all that surprising), and Hayden emerged from the sitting room. Looking like he had been up hours earlier than all of them.

Though, that did not stop the three knights from sitting down and grabbing the steaming plates of food.

“So,” Sherlock said, eating the scrambled eggs, “we’re staying while you train his friend and the rest?”

Marie nodded, spearing her eggs and dipping them in the newly formed mountain of tomato puré (a.k.a. ketchup) before casting them down in the never filling stomach.

“I don’t see the harm in us going though,” John said, eating slower than the other current members of table.

“If the DD’s are still going to be showing up, we need someone besides Doc to watch over this area, and he isn’t even here all the time,” Marie pointed her fork at John, “and don’t get me started on Team Free Will. All three of them probably say yeah, but Dean will complain the whole time”.

Sherlock snorted at that, but nodded his head all the same. It wasn’t wrong anyway, since Dean had expressed his profound letter of how he and the guys need “A damn long ass vacation away from all things not supernatural or otherwise”. By profound, Marie ment that the letter was full of repeated reasons as to why they had earned a vacation.   
Which Marie was pretty sure was proofread by Sam earlier, seeing as how there was a lot of crossed out words in the hand written letter. (She was starting to think that telling Abraxos to tell the guys that she had wifi in the Yggdrasil HQ was kind of not good idea.)

“So that would leave you three and Hayden to train them? Plus him?” John said, starting on his bacon.

“That would be the situation, yes,” Marie said, “but i’m having you,” Marie pointed her empty fork at Eggsy, seeing as she no longer had inocent food to stab, “train Hart. No butts Eggsy. Reluctant to admit it or not Eggsy, you know Hart better than any of us”.

“I have no other choice Eggsy, the faster we get these guys to knights, the better it will be to strengthen our defenses, and honestly, you two need to fix whatever you guys had. I’m getting a headache watching you two stare at each other. Besides, you know Hart’s style, how he fights. I can teach him how to do the Yggdrasil technique, but you need to guide him through his own style and test his movements,” Marie said, “I know you're not happy with this, and trust me, I would rather send Timmy to do this for Hart, but he’s better at handling the kind of people the other guy is bringing along. Roxy and Merlin are going to be under me, and Hayden’s going to help the best he can”.

After a minute of silence, Eggsy sighed and nodded his head, “I know Boss, it’s just-. I’m so confused about everything right now, what if he’s killed again? For real, I don’t think I can handle tha again. I could never take Galahad again if that happens”.

Tim stayed silent, but he moved a reassuring hand at the end of Eggy’s elbow, just enough to allow Eggsy to shrug it off if he wanted to. Eggsy tapped his own hand on Tim’s own, both of them removing it at the same time. 

Said man, Merlin, and Roxy finally made an appearance as the scent of a good, hearty breakfast grew too powerful to exist.

“Glad to see that you three have decided to grace us with your presence,” Marie commented, taking her plate despite the available space and sitting on the clean counter. While the smell of breakfast distracted the people in the kitchen, they could still smell the reminence of the disinfectant used in the apparent cleansing.

Even as they appeared to be in better shape than the rest of the occupants, they still looked tired and hungry as they didn’t say word. Merlin had taken the room of Hayden, and Harry had slept on the extra bedroom of 221B. As shabby as it was, it was a bed none the less. All three of them grabbed their plates and sat without a word, taking the offered mugs of coffee (tea in Harry’s case) with an expression of gratefulness. Eggsy had laughed when Roxy looked at his boss like she was suddenly the meaning of life.

“When do you think he is arriving Marie?” Sherlock asked, he was finished with is plate and stuck on what said person dubbed his “pondering” gesture.

“Oh, shush Sherlock, if he doesn’t come at this time I get to take his food-”

There were two hard knocks on the door. Marie cursed.

“Dammit Sherlock, speak of the devil and he shall appear, you shouldn’t have said anything”.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow in disbelief, “you’re a Omnist Marie, I expected more diversity”.

“Hey, you can only expect so much from me Sherly,” Marie said haughtily. Hayden shook his head in disbelief as he went to get the door.

“I see you have finally gotten this kitchen clean Sherlock,” A very distict, rather posh voice said.

Marie and Sherlock spoke in unison, “Kindly remove the long dowel off from your posterior Mycroft”.

Eggsy and Timmy snorted as they swallowed their food, succesfully not choking in the process, they proceeded to laugh at it. Merlin and Harry stood, while Roxy ignored the both of them in favor of drinking her coffee. She hadn’t been on the horse long enough to really know everything after all. She was sort of busy saving the world right after she was declared Lancelot. Merlin and Harry being in longer in the business recognized the British Government when they saw him.

“You? A knight?” Merlin questioned with a frown.

“Expecting someone different gentlemen?” Mycroft asked, a man whom remained unknown to Eggsy and Timmy trailed after him.

“Jeff, nice to see you again,” Sherlock said with no real meaning behind his words.

“It’s Greg, Sherlock, and hello John, Hayden. Er, Mycroft said that I was going to be knighted?” Said one Detective Greg Lestrade. Marie waved her hand with a welcoming grin.

“Hello Gregory, I’ve been watching you. Totally not in the stalker-ish way, but I have been told my Mycroft here that you are good at what you do”.

“Well,” Greg shrugged, looking of to the side slightly, much to the amusement of Mycroft and Sherlock, “something like that”.

“I assume Mycroft has already explained most of what you’re walking into here?”

“Umm,” Greg seemed unsure, “sorta, I was still confused, and a little freaked out- but he didn’t answer a lot of my questions so I figured he’d just explain it to me when it comes”.

“Shame on you Myc, leaving poor Greg in the dark like this,” Marie motioned to Greg while giving a look to Mycroft.

“I thought I was one of the only ones to get away with that,” Greg said with a grin and a teasing look towards Mycroft.

“Well in this case, only you, his mother, and his much bigger boss,” Marie pointed to herself, “me”.

“Yet, alas, his true boss is not the reigning monarch,” Marie hummed, “it is England himself”.

“England can’t be a girl?” Greg questioned.

“Well, he was a boy when I first met him, but you wouldn’t be wrong. Countries have many forms after all,” Marie said with a shrug. Which was a gesture she used often, Hary noted. Greg stared at the woman who put her plate into the sink, turning on the water for a bit to loosen whatever muk was still on the plate. Timmy and Eggsy followed her example, and John carried his and Sherlock’s with him as he did the same.

“Now to buisness since most of us are finished,” Mycroft stated. His plate clean and in the sink suspiciously enough, but the mystery was quickly solved as Hayden came back from the sink.

"Fine, we'll talk about "business", " Marie put the word in quotation marks, "we've got four people that's going in for training. At the present, it will be five of us that are going to be doing that training. John and Sherlock are staying here to keep track of what's going on. The problem, lies that we have no idea what's going on here. Well, kind off".

Mycroft raised an eyebrow in the middle of her ramble, "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"This has happened before, but not extremely recently," Marie said, "I'm not sure exactly if I'm right, and I need to go to the Observatory before I say anything foolish".

Harry, Merlin, and Roxy finished their breakfast and put the plates away. Waiting on the conversation.

"Then I suppose it's time then," Mycroft said, getting up, "all will be explained once we get to Jennifer".

"Jen Myc, it's Jen," Marie deadpanned, "how can you call Greg "Greg" and not call Jen "Jen"? Never mind, clearly your priorities are changed, let's just go".

Mycroft merely raised his eyebrow a bit higher with a slight dust of pink in his cheeks. Sherlock snorting in the background at the sight. John was grinning behind his hand as well, while Hayden was rolling eyes with a small, barely noticeable smile on his face. Even Eggsy and Tim shared amused looks with each other as they followed Marie out, who was behind Mycroft and Greg

It didn't take much to figure out just what exactly they were thinking about, as soon after the Kingsmen agents exchanged amused looks themselves before following Hayden. Leaving Sherlock and John

The plates were mysteriously cleaned and put away. John grinned as he realized Marie wasn't on the table when they were having their conversation.

"I suppose old habits die hard," he muttered to himself as he read the little note he found on the now empty sink.

Keep an eye out you guys, be safe. Don't let sherlock put dicks in the fridge anymore. Love ya guys. ~Marie :)

"Ever the concerned boss isn't she?" Sherlock muttered from his chair, to which he received a gentle punch on the shoulder by John.

"That's why we listen to her".

-With the Training Gang-

Marie sneezed as they walked into the empty dance studio. After meeting Jennifer (or Jen as she prefered) who was a knight that had been keeping this "gate" secure for the order, they all stared at the giant mirror. Which was ridiculously clean, perhaps even unnaturally so.

"Alright listen up, cause this is lesson number one," Marie nodded over to the giant mirror, "This is a mirror gate. Obviously, it is a mode of transportation".

"While dimension hopping is great and all, most knights prefer this method, as it takes a hell of a lot less energy to use, next to none actually. But anyway, this is kind of like, the express route to the Yggdrasil HQ, it's a lot easier to explain once we actually get there".

She tapped the mirror and it rippled into an image of what seemed like a very, very, very large tree house library. Which most of the new people thought that at this point, they couldn't really question it.

Marie turned around, "Well? What are you guys waiting for? Allons-y!"

Marie swung forward into the mirror.

The “newbs” as Marie started calling them (except for Roxy and Greg, she called them kiddos), exchanged looks with each other before shrugging and swinging themselves forward. Granted, the Kingsmen agents had less trouble compared to Greg (As a detective, he could only compete so much with three, rather experienced and well trained, super spies)

Greg whistled as he looked around. Mycroft, Hayden, Eggsy and Tim had gone ahead before them after Marie, and they looked comfertable at the bookstore/library atmosphere the room was giving off to all of them.

Marie grinned and presented everything behind her with a flourish, “Welcome to the Observatory!”

In a circular shaped room we’re about 10 feet tall bookcases that were filled to the brim with books, both new and old. Above their heads was a night sky filled with stars and galaxies that if you looked long enough, you can see them above, slowly shifting to the west as the “night” went on.

“Why is it called The Observatory?” Merlin asked looking around, “wouldn’t “The Library” be a more appropriate name for it?”

“Well, it’s called The Observatory because this is the viewing room sorts,” Marie pointed to a particular section in the library where both Dvd’s and books were kept neatly, “that is your story. All your stories, and they are written as they go along, but i’m really the only one that can read them”.

“Every book in here is a possibility, new ones are added everyday. By the people of Earth 1. The origin Earth, where all these branches of the Yggdrasil is grown from. That’s why it gets bigger and bigger. New universes are added, and don’t even get me started on that section,” she nodded over to a section which looked like a lot of comic books that appeared blank to them, “just looking at all the possibilities gives me a headache. So when there’s a problem, I usually just pop in and go with the situation. There’s no other way to do it really”.

“It’s sort of like...fanfiction, that’s translated into this plain of reality is the only way to describe it”.

“What’s fanfiction?” Greg asked, curious. He’s heard of the term, but he’s never really gotten a chance to check.

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry about it. I wasn’t talking to you about that one,” she aimed in the all directions, “there are others who are like me. They just can’t get through this plain of reality. They are from Earth Zero, they’re special. All of them, because they have the power to do all this,” she motioned to all the books, “my world is just a small portion of this. But them, they are truly the creators in this place. I only serve as a small moderator for some of the sections. I have a theory that every person on Earth Zero has a person like me. Just to keep some things in check, and to move things around. It’s why my alternate name is “Muse”. It’s complicated to think about, but you get used to it after a while”.

“So...you're not doing this out of your own free will?” Asked Roxy with a deep set frown, “are we all really just pawns of some person’s game?”

“No, no,” Marie said with a note of finality, “we are all here by free will. So am I, it’s just in our nature. They may influence what we do, but we are all people here. Truly, we could do something completely unplanned, it’s the beauty of making things up as you go along. Everything just...fits. It’s kind of what it’s like, doing something you enjoy. Or maybe even writing, acting, being an artist in general, sometimes the natural way for people is just to not think about it. That’s why I tend to blank out when i’m in the middle of writing, it just happens for me. Like my characters, who are like my kids by the way, are writing themselves”.

“We write our own stories, it’s just them, by them I mean the people of Earth Zero, translating what we do. Our thoughts, our actions, into their world. Because they can’t really get into ours. So they do it in ways we can’t”.

Roxy nodded in understanding, which Marie smiled to. They were going to get this so fast. Even Greg seemed in understanding of everything she had just talked about. ‘Sherlock’s going to get a pride boost once he hears that Greg is actually adopting some of his intelligence and habits,’ Marie gave an amused look to a subtly proud looking Mycroft, ‘but he’s going to get a kick out of Mycroft’s attitude’.

“So anyway, it’s about,” Marie took out a smart phone and checked the time, “9 in the evening for you guys, you should get some rest. Tomorrow we go through a syllabus and some basic rules”.

There was a confused silence in the air.

“Just kidding, we’re going through a physical test to see where you are, nothing major, it’s just you're average physical test really”.

It set in that all of them were tired, even after eating breakfast, many of the “kiddos and newbs” felt their shoulders sag.

“Yeah, going through the Mirror Gate can do that to ya on you're first try, for now. Dinner in the mess hall,” Tim said, Sherlock and Mycroft went to opposite direction as Marie, Eggsy, Haden, and the trainees followed him.

Two wooden doors guarded the entrance to the mess hall, to which with a snap of her fingers, Marie opened the doors.

Inside were rows and rows of picnic style oak tables, lighted by a soft brown light from the lamps above them. Phantom wisps buzzed around peacefully until excited by the presence of new “consumers”, as these wisps often called anyone who came into the room.

“Dinner guys,” Marie stated simply as she sat on the nearest table to the door. Eggsy, Hayden, and Timmy sat next to her while Harry, Merlin, Roxy and Greg sat on the other. Waiting for their food being made by the wisps.

“They get so excited when someone other than me eats here,” Marie said as the wisps buzzed around them with some favorite drinks. Some had tea, some had soft drinks, and some just had some simple water.

They all got their own preference of favorite foods and dug in quite excitedly. Having an easy conversation in between bites. (Though granted, they got the warning that Marie was going to ignore them if they choke because of it, due to witnessing Eggsy choking and being helped by Hayden instead of Marie.)

“So, what do we call you mam?” Roxy said as she arranged her utensils together, which was quickly taken by a nearby wisp.

“Marie’s just fine, it’s not like being called anything else will help you guys learn any quicker than you could,” Maire said shrugging and extending her glass out for a reill.

“Boss is just a nickname,” Eggsy said over his bowl of oatmeal. Marie said it was dinner, she didn’t necessarily say that it couldn’t be a breakfast or lunch food. Which the “Trainees” had figured out when the wisp brought Marie a bag of In-in-out fast food burgers.

“I call her Mum,” Timmy said over his mac and cheese, while Hayden nodded in agreement after swallowing eating a bagel, “really it’s your preference”.

Roxy nodded as the rest finished off their food, stretching her arms over head. Leaving the plates to be cleaned up and followed Hayden, Eggsy, and Timmy into their respective “Dorms”.

Marie rolled her eyes behind them after she witnessed Eggsy and Harry exchanged some unseen stares. Really, and she had trained Eggsy to be aware of mostly 70% of anything. None the less, operation fix Eggsy by throwing Hart at him was so far going well. Eggsy had simply been ignoring so far, but that will change once actual lessons start happening.

Marie turned and fixed her gaze on the main part of The Observatory where the some of the main branches of the Yggdrasil tree were. There was a new book.

She approached it, thumbing the spine of the book slightly before pulling it  out, the length and size seems familiar. If she was right, then this adds to a branch to an existing part of the proverbial tree.

She took the book with her to the nearby couch/bed, opening the book up to first page and pulling out glasses. Dimming the room around her and leaving only the softest light possible, “Alright, let’s see what you're about then”.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA Got this out earlier than last time -is proud of self- but it's kind of shorter -sulks- none the less, I wonder if you can guess what this "New Book" is hm? (It's going to be the subject of next part of this series, but this story is solely concentrated on Eggsy and Harry's healing relationship) However, it in the next chapter, a one on one interaction with our two favorite suit wearing dorks. -waves- See ya next time! Hope you enjoy this little chapter! And have a good day/night/afternoon!


	6. Chapter 6, Dancing Kings and Running Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for running, fighting, and...talking.

Chapter 6, Dancing Kings, and Running Games

* * *

 

Eggsy woke up refreshed. Which wasn’t much of surprise seeing that the Yggdrasil HQ had some magical properties throughout the complex that would allow the most satisfactory environment. The short version? Magic place like to keep people comfortable.  
Timmy emerged from the second bathroom, the one to the left. His bed was already made and already fresh with his hair combed back, glasses fixed, and in a gray shirt with black jeans. Wearing sneakers. Which was typically the uniform when you spent the night here.

“Morning Tim,” Eggsy yawned, extending his hand for the clean new towel he knew Timmy would throw to him. It was almost routine despite not being here for around months.  
Timmy grunted and walked out of the room, not waiting for Eggsy.

While one Timmy Jones went to grab the freshest coffee possible, one Gary “Eggsy” Unwin went to take a shower before emerging with wet hair, a white t-shirt and jogging pants. Sturdy black converse shoes waiting for him as he fingered his hair back with no general concern for appearance.

He walked out with in the hall as he went straight for cafeteria, seeing the rest of the gang all there eating their respective meals. Eggsy grinned as a wisp flew by and greeted him with a mute whiz through the air. The little buggers were easily excited whenever their “boss” brought in new and old recruits.

He saw Marie staring intently at a blank wall as she chewed on a slice of steak. The same meal as the breakfast before, which wasn’t much of a surprize. When it came to food, Marie was pretty predictable in what she would order. However, it was the look she was having. The “thinking too hard look”, as everyone had called it, and it doesn’t show up often. It means that she’s either got something being built behind that thick skull for her story, or, she’s planning something that should possibly end up with just her being hurt while the rest just get pissed of at her for making the plan in the first place. (The only time he’s ever seen that particular plan thought was during the Battle. Which wasn’t that much of a fun experience for everyone. However, usually, that “Plan” was only made when the fate of the universe is hanging on the balance.)

“You're thinking of something,” Sherlock said across from her, already finished with his breakfast (the wisps were always insistent on Sherlock eating more than a  
scone) “and I’m not quite sure if that something is good”.

Marie hummed, barely glancing at Sherlock as her eyes went back and forth across the white wall. No doubt bringing out information, but for what remained a mystery.  
“For once I agree with Sherlock,” Mycroft said, in the usual way that he said it, which had concerned Greg to a point, “the last time this happened, it didn’t turn out so well for you”.

Eggsy and Timmy glanced a sideways looked at Mycroft, for usually Mycroft wouldn’t have waited to use Marie’s full name. The fact that he was avoiding it was suspicious, and Sherlock had noticed it even earlier than they did if his slight look of impatience with understanding towards them was any indicator. Which was odd in it’s own right. Sure, Eggsy understood that Sherlock usually showed the little feelings he’d managed to gain from his time spent with John, but none the less, this was too much. It must be bad.

“Boss,” Eggsy said gently, as if poking at a sleeping dragon. Which in this situation, it essentially was, “what are ya plannin’?”

Marie blinked, seemingly pulled out of her “pondering” and stared at Eggsy with a frown, “Wha? Oh, sorry. I was...thinking”. She did a double take with the appearance of Sherlock, “Wait, you’re supposed to be with John, why the hell are you here?

“That was pretty obvious Ma, but about what? Thinking is dangerous for you, also you told him to stay for a day or two before we left to come here,” Timothy said, and the others who weren’t quite familiar looked up from their food and conversations in favor of trying to see what the hell was going on. The original thought was that side comment was an insult, but with the tense atmosphere everyone felt, they were starting to double back on that thought as they saw the five knights stare at Marie. Who ignored them in favor of biting her steak. They were also kind of concerned with the lapse of memory.

Even Eggsy saw that she had bit her lip for a second before grabbing another slice of meat.

“I’ve figured out why there was a sudden spike in Shade encounters, i’ve checked with everyone. Tony and Alec, Artemis and Arc, Percy and Remus, Carter, Sadie and Rei, even Omnuim Celestials like Daniel. Even Doc and RJ. Everyone has seen the spike in encounters. I’ve found out why, but…” She put her fork down as she paused, her throat moved back and forth as she swallowed, “...I can’t tell you. Not yet, right now. We’ve only got two Knights in this particular section”.

“Who are those knights exactly?” Sherlock muttered, but Marie heard it.

“I can’t say, I just know two of them are there,” Marie offered, but stared intently, “this hasn’t happened in a long time…”.

“BUT!” Marie lifted Sherlock by the back of his purple shirt, “You need to get  
back to John, come on, I’ll drop you by the C.R. at 221B”.

“CR?” Roxy mouthed to Eggsy, who grinned and mouthed ‘bathroom’ back, but added ‘Comfort Room’ for good measure. Getting up and seeing the wisps collect the empty plates and cups, he led the group into the Training Room. Well, more like Tim got them all up and announced that they were in fact, going to test now, meanwhile Eggsy just led out the room, but hey.

Eggsy glanced at Harry before moving his eyes back to the front when their eyes met. In which Timmy and Mycroft shared looks before rolling their eyes. Merlin watched the environment while Roxy stayed close to Eggsy throughout the walk.

“Try not ta get too distracted about where you want to go,” Eggsy said after a stroke of remembrance, “a place as big as this kind of needs some magic to get around, it ain’t rocket science or anythin’ like that shit, just think about where you want ta go, you’ll get there just fine”.

Merlin took a second, more suspicious glance at his surroundings before deciding to follow the group more closely than he would have normally.

Eggsy then stopped at two wooden doors that had no handles, and he stopped with a frown. Before turning to Mycroft and Timmy.

“You guys remember what tha password was?”

“I think it was snickerdoodle wasn’t it?” Tim turned to Mycroft for help. Who look like he was thinking before answering the question.

“It was διανοίγω,” Mycroft answered, which sounded like dee-an-oy'-go. Viola, open door.

“I open fully? Not that creative is it?” Roxy said as the doors opened to reveal a very large room.

“Just be lucky that she hadn’t changed the password, it could have been ‘speak the word friend and enter’ in elvish, and we wouldn’t have known it unless she told us,” Timmy said, which was truth. One time they had to do training in the library because Marie left without saying the password to anyone. Turns out that it was ‘snickerdoodle’ at the time.

“We couldn’t get in for fuckin’ weeks,” Eggsy called out from the front, finally entering the room.

Now, when they said it was a Training Room, capitals included, it really was a Training Room. Exercising machines and several other physical health techs were spread out around the room, which was equally the size of a very large ballroom. In the center was a some sort of arena where wooden swords were spewed out neatly in racks. A Track followed right after the arena, resulting in a good one quarter mile long lap. There was even a fighting ring.

“You guys don't mess around do you?” Said Greg, staring in slight awe at the scene.  
Eggsy snorted, “Actually, you'd be surprised ‘bout how we use it”.

“I'll just tell you it's a lot less serious than contemplating the existence of life forms in the universe,” Timmy shrugged at the looks he's gotten, “we all think weird things in the showers here, thought it was fitting. Sherlock's gotten weirder things”.  
“Like that time he solved the case and came out running naked from the shower,” Eggsy muttered.

“He really did that?” Said Greg in confusion.

“Sherlock shall always be, Sherlock?” Timmy offered as an answer. Which wasn't that far off from the truth, he does have his own loveable ways.  
Eggsy shrugged and proceeded to walk towards the track, tipping his head towards the track, “first one’s a cardio test”.

“Uh, since i’m pretty much the civilian here, is there anyway you can fail?” Greg asked following the group like everyone else.

“Technically no, the only way you can’t be a knight in the Order is to do something like,” Timmy shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to figure out whatever word he was going to say, “...you have to be willing to do something like break the one rule all knights have to obey under all circumstances. Ma has only seen this particular rule broken once. She hasn’t been the same since”.

“What was that rule exactly?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Betray the order to the Shades for power,” Eggsy answered slowly, turning around without another word with Timmy as they switched to a different topic.  
Roxy, Merlin, Harry, and Greg exchanged another set of glances before acknowledging that this wasn’t a topic they were able to discuss easily, and promptly let it go. For now.  
As they arrived to the track finally (which was very much farther than what they originally anticipated) Timothy went to the nearby counsel and tapped a few buttons, turning the track into a forest terrain.

“We need to see how long it takes for you to get through the forest, it’s pretty much just a endurance test, the time it takes won’t really have much of an impact,” Tim said as he walked back to the group.

Eggsy nodded to the locker room, “You guys can change in there if you like, but otherwise you can go ahead”.

They all took off immediately, which was pretty much what Eggsy and Tim expected.  
Tim looked at Eggsy, “that was three secret agents and one Scotland Yard detective you told to run in a forest in their pajamas, and pretty much would probably do it in their suits, by the way. In which case Roxy, Merlin, and Mr. Hart already run in their suits because they’re custom tailored. Greg’s the main detective in most of Sherlock’s cases- and you really just said that they could go to a locker room to run in a forest?”  
Eggsy frowned at Tim for the monologue, “Yeah, why not?”

“Just seeing if you remember who you're dealing with Eggsy,” Tim said with a shrug as he sat down on the floor, criss-cross-applesauce position.  
Eggsy joined him in silence, and about five minutes before he broke it again.

“I’m not quite sure how to deal with training Harry,” at that,Tim looked at Eggsy with a questioning look.

“I know Mar sent me to train Harry cause I know his style best, but…” Eggsy frowned, “it’s kind of weird because once upon a time it was the other way around”.

Tim snorted, but stayed silent as he glanced at the clock counting the minutes since they all barreled ahead. Ten minutes had passed.

“Im also pretty fuckin’ sure that they’re all goin’ to laugh ‘bout the Order’s fight style,” Eggsy said with a snort, which Tim laughed along with him too.

“No doubt about that,” Tim glanced at the clock again, he could hear the leaves crunching in the distance, “they’re going to be either really difficult to teach, or really easy to teach it to them”.

Eggsy frowned as he realized something, “You know, Mar never gave a name to the type of fighting style she created”.

“What fighting style would that be?” Harry said as he jogged out of the forest clearing. A thin sheen of sweat. Tim smirked silently as he heard Eggsy gulp a little, getting up and walking towards the group.

“Not bad, forty minutes to get passed the jungle environment, considering that two of you aren’t exactly accustomed to the circumstances, no disrespect, i’m just saying it’s probably been a while-”

“What Tim means is that was pretty impressive and we could probably skip a few lessons,” Eggsy said with a sigh and shoving Tim’s head slightly, “he rambles when he gets excited”.

“I think we can all see that,” Roxy said with an amused smile she shared with Eggsy, which he grinned in response before continuing to shove Tim’s head to the side. Tim battered the hand that kept shoving his face.

After successfully shoving off the hand that was over his mouth now, and now proceeded to keep that hand away from his face, “Roxy, Merlin, Greg, we’re going to play wolf vs. rabbit, i’m the rabbit, now catch me!”

Tim ran off with a sprint towards the door and over a couple of machinery, successfully matching a style of parkour that they (Merlin, Harry, and Roxy) found to be the same style Eggsy used when well, running away.

Merlin, Greg, and Roxy exchanged looks with each other before running after the self-proclaimed “rabbit”. With Roxy slightly ahead in the lead.

Promptly leaving Eggsy and Harry together.

“The fuckin’ smirkin’ asshole-” Eggsy paused in his bout of insulting his second yet first best friend next to Roxy and sighed, turning to Harry.

“How far do you know ‘bout fighting with a sword?” He asked quietly.

Harry stared for a second, “Basics”.

“Oh that answers a lot,” Eggsy grumbled before walking towards the racks of wooden sword.

Harry followed silently, the air was pretty tense with tension. Neither party not knowing what they were supposed to say. Eggsy picked up two of the wooden medieval broadsword and threw one of them to Harry.

“Alright then, let’s see how much is ‘basic’,” Eggsy said, taking a stance. Harry took his own, mirroring Eggsy’s right shoulder stance.

They went at it with a lot of uniformity, one always blocking before the other proceeded to attack, then exchanging the roles every few minutes. That is, until Eggsy decided to change the pace and implement the Order’s fighting style.

Picking up the pace, Eggsy slammed his sword into Harry’s right block, immediately turning to slam into Harry’s left block. Swinging in the same direction of when he went to Harry’s right, (Eggsy’s left) he swung upward diagonally towards Harry’s head. Turning again to swipe at Harry’s foot the same way, but in an opposite direction. After missing that one, Eggsy ducked his body back to avoid Harry’s own swing. Not missing a beat he rushed forward, deliberately swinging the sword before it would hit to bait Harry’s instincts of blocking and deflecting it. As he swung, he slammed the sword into the block as hard as he could, since Harry was using one hand, and ducked low enough to catch it with his other hand before aiming it at Harry’s neck, with Harry’s sword not enough to be able to get it out of his face without getting beheaded first, it was Eggsy’s win.

Eggsy released one long breath as Harry huffed a little, dropping the sword in surrender.

Harry thought about the fight, after dodging Eggsy’s swing for his foot, Eggsy immediately went backwards to dodge his swing. The problem lies where he could have easily used any other form of retaliation, but Eggsy managed to guess right before Harry even made the decision.

“How?” He asked after recovering his breath.

Eggsy grinned. On his side, the moment he hit Harry on his right, time slowed down just enough for him to make a decision. Just enough to get out of the way when Harry made the tiny movement to indicate that he was going to slash at him in retaliation. Which was a twist of his wrist.

“The Order’s fighting style is both really complicated to explain, but not that hard to really do once you get the hang of it,” Eggsy said.

“Then really, how is it done?”

“Mar explained that it was like dancing, if you dance with a partner, you expect them to know what to do, that’s where the dancing part comes in rather literally,” Eggsy said, putting his wooden sword on the rack and picking up a water bottle, Harry following Eggsy silently for his explanation, “you think about a song, any song. Pick one, and fight with the same beat as the song”.

“The sheer number of possibilities would be endless, but that doesn’t explain how you predicted how you predicted how I was going to respond to your attacks”.

“That’s the first half the strategy, fighting, especially when you’re doin’ the deed with swords is all instinct. It’s muscle memory,” Eggsy said, taking a gulp of water, “if you push the person enough for them to rely on their instincts before they realize what’s actually going on, then your opponent doesn’t realize that because they’re only drawing from muscle memory; you can predict it easily. Plus side is that since they’re fighting, they don’t realize the style you’ve been fighting. The beat that you put up with as you're following the song is not yet realized”.  
Harry gave Eggsy a skeptical look, and Eggsy was about to respond before Harry beat him to it, “that cannot possibly be the description Marie gave you”.

Eggsy shrugged, “No it wasn’t, she said ‘it’s like in an action movie, or film, when the main hero is fighting and everything goes slow-mo, actually, it’s kind of like dancing really’ but she explained it more scientifically later. How did you know that it wasn’t how?”

“That description you gave me wouldn’t have been the way you learned how to do it,” Harry said, taking a sip out of his own water bottle, “you normally…’figure things out while you go along’”.

And if anyone knew how Eggsy learned most things, it was Harry more than anyone.

“We need to talk about...that,” Eggsy said finally, after a few moments of silence.

Harry sighed and nodded, “I agree this has gone far longer than I would have wanted it to- I understood you’d be rather cross with me-”.

“Okay let me stop you right there, because I think you're jaded on what i’m mad at,” Eggsy interrupted, “i’m mad at what you did, not at you”.

Eggsy sighed as he put down the water bottle he was holding, “I spiralled a lot like how Mum did when Dad died”.

Harry didn’t respond to that, he didn’t know how, so he stuck with the most sensible answer, “I’m sorry”.

“I know,” Eggsy said, “and while I can’t forgive you just yet, the fact that I knew you were sorry helps a hell of a lot”.

Eggsy let out a huff as they enjoyed the silence, the tension less tense than it was before. Or at least, that’s what either of them have observed from the atmosphere.

“I see the awkward silence tension has passed,” said Marie, stating the obvious and walking out with a slight slouch, hair splayed off everywhere in a bushy mess.

Eggsy and Harry looked at each other, exchanging looks before turning back to the expectant Yggdrasil.

“You took longer than I expected,” Eggsy said.

“And you look worse for wear,” Harry continued.

She let out a long, suffering, sigh as she plopped down on the floor, lying on her back, and thumping her head on the floor. Repeatedly.

“Mar?”

“Adler”.

“Ah,” Eggsy turned to Harry, because he just knew Harry was going to have a questioning looked aimed at him.

“Mar and Irene Adler have been involved in some situations Mar here is really, really, uncomfortable with,” Eggsy said shortly.

“I couldn’t stand physical contact from black haired women for a week,” Marie muttered, “my editor is a black haired woman Do you know how frustrating that was? She is scary when I don’t talk to her about my outlines!”

“Mar’s editor is also kind of a splitting image of said Ms. Adler,” Eggsy muttered to Harry who nodded as Marie still muttered about what happened under breath.

“WOAH”.

Tim lept over Marie’s body to get behind Eggsy, huffing and puffing as he hid behind Eggsy and Harry.

“Don’t blow my cover,” Tim hissed, “they haven’t found me yet, ten more minutes and I win”.

“Kay,” Marie said, turning her head to face the ceiling, “Eggsy, Hart, don’t blow the cover”.

It was exactly eleven minutes before Roxy, Merlin, and Greg trudged in looking very much tired.

“HA! Exactly one minute over! I win!” Tim said coming up from behind Harry and Eggsy, joining Marie on the floor, “no I sleep”.

They all turned to Eggsy.

“Yeah, this is pretty usual,” Eggsy said with a shrug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got it out! Hope you enjoy this chapter, either way, hope you have a good day/night/afternoon!


	7. Chapter 7, Lessons, Explanations, and Sparing; Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's now time for a lessons and explanations. As well as a public showing of the ever infamous "technique".

Chapter 7, Lessons, Explanations, and Sparing; Oh My!

* * *

“Now then!” Marie rubbed her hands together as she stood in the center of the library. Her ‘students’ sat around on top of the couches as she paced around the room, rubbing her neck absentmindedly.

Eggsy, Tim, and Hayden stood off to the corner in varying degrees of horror and amusement as Marie’s accent changed. A lot. The woman used to be a sort of actress back when her high school friends had projects in school, so changing her accent and mannerisms wasn’t that hard, just extremely surprising. Besides, the fact she could probably guilt trip Sherlock into solving a case, for Mycroft of all people should probably tell a lot of people just how much manipulation she could do. None the less, the accent went to a very prominent Southern Californian accent, which, granted didn’t really have much of a presence anyway, but as they listened they could here the small ‘like’ splashed in here and there when they could tell that she was looking for words to suit the sentence.

“Well well well, where do we start? I know! Let’s start at the mid beginning!,” Marie said clapping her hands once.

“Wait. Wait, why not at the very beginning?” Greg asked. Marie pointed at the detective,  
“Good question. Don’t interrupt me”.

Greg shut his mouth as he waited. A bit miffed. It was like talking to Sherlock while he’s making a deduction. You get shot down in the most strange of ways.

“She reminds me of the Doctor when she get’s like that,” Eggsy muttered. Hayden smirked, but nodded all the same. Tim snorted in response.

“I think she reviewed before she left, you can hardly blame her. Doc’s habits are easy to get when you’re her,” Tim said, “at least she didn’t say ‘shut up’”.

“Eggsy, Timmy, shut up”.

They promptly shut their mouths at that. Allowing Marie to pause in her pacing and turn to the current recruits.

“Alright, so again. Mid-beginning, you already know the basics, so I won’t go over it, but let’s see how much you do know. One at a time, don’t bother to raise your hand, what religions have like, uh, a tree as a significant part?”

“Christianity? The tree with the fruit on it?” Greg offered.

“Brilliant, what else? Perhaps something more specific”.

“The Yggdrasil tree in Norse Mythology,” Roxy stated. Marie pointed at her, with a grin.

“Bingo! That’s what I’m looking for! In case you haven’t noticed, already we go by ‘The Order of Yggdrasil’. Which although since this new information is presented, would suggest that we are mostly alike to that of Norse legends. Which is not a bad theory, but it is wrong, at least for the most part,” Marie did a little twirl, stopping and pointing at the library, “The Order goes by that name, namely because it’s the most recognized. Since there are a lot of different legends and religions surrounding a tree that holds multiple worlds. The Order’s real name is actually “The Order of the World Tree”. T.O.O.T.W.T? Never mind, bad idea- Anyway, I think you and I can agree that it’s a bit of a mouthful, so we settled on The Order of Yggdrasil. It makes more sense if you abbreviate that one. T.O.Y. We also call it ‘The Order’ for short, but TOY when we speak about it with any outsiders mucking about. Besides the fact that there’s also a nice ring to the name”.

Marie made a small shrug before drinking from a glass of water, finishing it before putting back down.

“So, let’s back up to some already known information shall we? You guys know that the branches of Yggdrasil is a Universe. Perhaps a Universe that’s linked to different Universes, but none the less, it is a Universe. And in every Universe there are ranks in terms of responsibility for each world”.

Marie pointed at Tim, “You have the Celestials- not sure if I explained all of this already so feel free to ignore it. They are in charge of putting the links between here,” Marie gestured to her surroundings, “and to their world. In summary if some serious shit is going down, he’s the guy to make the call and bring it to my attention. Like some serious kinks in your own Universe’s personal timeline, something that’s not suppose to happen under any circumstances. One of you two, remind me to go back on this later”.

Marie then pointed back and forth between Timmy and Hayden, “Sometimes there can be more than one Celestial in a Universe, but usually that’s mostly because of Universes linking together. There are also the a group of ‘God like’ celestials, but they are the back ups of the back ups. As in the ‘only for extreme emergency’ type of back ups. We do that because, well, if they were in a video game, they’d be the ‘Over powered’ characters. Though don’t make the mistake to think that just because they’re all OP, that’s a gaming term by the way, they are still vulnerable, the title is simply the type of power they hold”.

She pointed at Eggsy, “He’s an arch knight, that means that he holds a little more luck and good instincts. They are more of the decision makers really, unless it leaves me-and only me to answer. Whatever they say, usually goes”.

Marie scratched her head in mid-thought, frowning and muttering a bunch of words that were incoherent to those not standing directly intruding in her little personal space bubble. (Approximately one foot in radius if you were wondering, from the surface skin to bubble, subject to change depending on the person and mood.)

“I feel like I’m forgetting a lot of something…oh, right. Swords,” Marie pulled out her own, “this is something that really just…appears”.

She pointed a thumb at a nearby door that they didn’t notice was in the Library before, “I usually monitor all the swords that are popping in and out of the ‘vault’ where all of them are kept as I believe Tim over there told you- but yeah, sword is just a name, technically it could be any weapon of your choice. Granted it’s made of a material usually found within this big ass whopping Observatory, but we’ll get to that later”.

She pointed at the mirror that was roughly the same size as two doors, “That is our way of transport to other worlds. Speak the words and you can get there just fine. First time is draining, but other times you don’t feel the energy drain”.

“Honestly, there isn’t much to learn ‘remembering’ wise, most of the time is taken learning the fighting technique, but with the back up of these three bozos,” Marie pointed to the trio of Yggdrasil Celestial Knights with her thumb, “in that case it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Well, time-wise- why did I say time wise? It’s not a problem at all, I mean to say. It’s just that things will go on a lot faster”.

“However, since most of you are actually pretty well trained in self defense, Greg don’t give me that look- we all know Mycroft gets you to learn a shit ton of self defense stuff and eating healthier because he’s Mycroft, so don’t deny it, it’s only for those who are literally not educated in defending themselves in a organized manor, I’m an exception. Mostly because I just do what I can and go absolutely nuts on the person I plan to beat the shit out of,” Marie shrugged, “otherwise, I take the sword and swing or shoot”.

“That’s been proven a lot,” Eggsy chimed, “seen it. She bites”.

“And claws, and pokes, jabs, the works, but then she is a writer, so we couldn’t exactly say anything about being to predictable when we spared” Tim said, Hayden nodding silently.

“Meh, do what I say, not as I do and all that,” Marie waved her hand dismissively at the three, “but yes. If you want it out of the horse’s mouth, I do in fact, bite. Yeah, Roxy?”

“What do you mean by learning the fighting technique?”

“Excellent question, the hardest part of learning the technique I made is literally because its so damn simple,” she said, pausing slightly, “you need to be comfortable in some sort of fighting style. Like if your fond of jumping around, your jumping around. The complicated part is timing it. You can learn, let’s say fencing for example, and if you apply the technique, you time your actions based on a certain tune or song. It’s like a deadly form of dancing, partnered with having your own theme song”.

“Mar, the personal timeline thing,” Tim said.

Nodding, Marie resumed to pace, “Alright, so about the whole personal timeline, there’s a way certain Universes goes. Like, you usually can suddenly jump to far from the main plot. As in, your not really supposed to wake up and just start thinking you want to open your own shop. You usually go through a process if this is what’s going on. Especially in your particular branches, because of well- complicated things you don’t really have to worry about. Let’s say, for the sake of conversation, you wake up and suddenly Kingsman was a popular restaurant, and Valentine suddenly had a rival restaurant. That’s a definite sign right there that there’s something wrong”.

Marie shrugged, “Usually, you know when it happens. Trust me on that, because it’s kind of hard to explain”.

Marie turned to the trio, “Anything I missed?”

“I think we should go over your origins Mar,” Tim said, pushing himself off from whatever he was leaning on.

“Go get some sleep Mar,” Eggsy and Marie had a little stare-down until Marie threw her hands up in the air in surrender. Never let it be said that Eggsy couldn’t hold his own when it mattered. Even if he was a drunken mess a few days ago. Funny how duty tended to overrule the feeling of misery.

“Anyway, history lesson. The actual age of Mar is actually pretty weird to calculate because she’s not in the same passage of time as the rest of us,” Tim said, nodding over to the room she had just gone through, “mostly because our concept of time is entirely different than her going through time”.

“So technically, she is both over maybe…200-400 years old, Eggsy you think?” Tim continued as Eggsy nodded, “over here. However she’s actually around 20 in her time. It’s kind of like having different time zones”.

Eggsy through Tim a book from one of the books in the library, flipping through it before nodding to himself, “And she was about 15 when she first started her job. There’s also a very flexible concept to what she can actually do when she’s in one of the branches, and you’ll see that most of us older knights call it that because saying Universe is kind of weird”.

“What exactly would you mean by that?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, Mar doesn’t like the make it known, but she can basically play god,” Eggsy said shrugging, “tha’s why we tend ta be a little more on the surprised side when she actually interacts wit us”.

“Wait, god?” Greg frowned at that, not exactly getting the concept.

“It’s pretty general rule of thumb tha’s the more you make something different from what is intended, the worse it becomes. It’s a trend in most cartoon movies, bad guy tries to change his fate-“

“The bad guy ends up accepting his fate,” Roxy finished Eggsy’s words.

“Exactly, tha’s why she don’t particularly like doing anything directly influencing our decisions unless Shade’s are involved,” Eggsy shrugged, “she can make things happen, which is why it’s very rare when she comes, and no shades are involved”.

“Basically, she’s like that one powerful being that doesn’t really want to do anything because of the all-knowing part. Let’s face it, the fact that she’s all-knowing kind of influences the decisions. Besides, I think you kind of noticed that she’s pretty biased”.

“So even if she wasn’t able to know everything, she’d interfere anyway,” Harry nodded, hardly much of a deduction, but none the less it voiced the thought everyone had running through their head.

“Wait, so if we were supposed to die because of some…natural means, she couldn’t do anything about it? If she knows that we’re going to die on a mission of something, she can’t warn us?” Roxy asked, very confused.

Timmy sighed and nodded, “That’s exactly how it goes, makes you wonder how she hasn’t gone all homicidal yet. Or at the very least…you know more bitter about everything”.

“If you think about it, it’s why so many of us has accepted in the first place,” Eggsy shrugged, “Us meaning just about everyone she’s ever recruited over the years. It’s easy to relate to her, if you get my meanin’”.

“Anyway,” Tim said, “That’s most of what you need to know, other than don’t dis the people Boss likes. If she doesn’t whoop your behinds herself, the others will. Loki made that mistake last time”.

“And what happened to this, Loki?” Merlin said with a raised eyebrow.

“Didn’t wake up till about a month later,” Eggsy said with a smirk, “e’s still weary ‘round ‘er”.

“What are ‘God Celestials’?” asked Greg, who had been waiting for the clear to ask. He had pretty good timing since he had practice with that with Sherlock and Mycroft, even if he still was called an idiot (by Sherlock, Mycroft just had this weird look whenever he did it).

“That’s when a Celestial has ‘god’ like powers, you’ll probably meet them down the road, but they could do a hell of a lot of stuff. Most of the ones we know are pretty alright though,” Tim answered.

“Anyway, explanations aside, how about some sparing?” Tim skipped towards the door that lead back to the Training Room. Which rather concerned Merlin and Roxy when said skipping didn’t make a damn sound. (Later they found out that you actually get better at hearing those foot steps the longer you stayed here, it seems with a few exceptions, most of the knights had a pretty light tread.)

Once again entering the room (Eggsy said the password this time), they headed straight for the arena with the wooden swords on the racks. Hayden immediately picked up one and stood, waiting for an opponent. Eggsy himself picked up five and threw one to each person who didn’t have one, seemingly at random before finally grabbing one for himself. It made sense for Hayden to demonstrate to the others, as Hayden had been a knight longer than both Eggsy and Timmy, and therefore had more practice with it.

“Rox, why don’t ‘cha go against Hayden. I think you’ll find it fun,” Eggsy said. Roxy nodded and approached Hayden, taking on a two handed approach, pointing the tip of the wooden blade at Hayden. Hayden held his sword with his right hand the tip pointing downward, exposing his inner forearm. His left foot was placed forward while his torso was turned to the right. His left hand hovered right over the sword hilt, not holding it, but close enough that he was able to change which hand he held the sword at a moment’s notice.

There was tense silence before Roxy surged forward, swinging from above. Hayden calmly side met her swing, stepping forward with his left foot and moving towards his right with the other foot, bringing his left behind (which reminded Greg of the box-step). He swung his sword left, extra force coming from his now two-handed grip to block Roxy’s swing.  
With Hayden’s sword on top, and therefore blocking Roxy, he made a horizontal swing towards Roxy’s side. Roxy jumped back in time for the move to miss. Roxy, moving to put the hilt of her blade near her left shoulder, breathed deeply. Her left elbow jutted outward while her right was inward towards the dual. Her right hand on top of her left.

Hayden, almost lazily, placed his right foot forward and his left back, both kept bent at a rough, maybe 95 or 96 degree angle. The sword now pointed upward, Hayden’s left hand gripped the sword in an icepick grip, his thumb placed at the pommel. With the katana like shape of the sword he’d chosen (there were several styles on several racks, the katana style was the rack they took from), and the short sword length of the blade (He picked his up at the rack nearest to the arena, where the shorter lengths were often kept); it didn’t look unlike a big wooden knife. Hayden’s torso now faced left, while his right hand was placed right under his crotch.

In another tense moment, Hayden decided to implement the technique. He pointed a look at Eggsy before going sprinting forward.

Eggsy turned to the three watching and moved his head towards the fight, signaling them to play close attention.

As Hayden sprinted forward, and right before he reached Roxy, who was waiting for his swing, through up the blade in a slight angle, grabbing it with his right hand. He had bent his knee while running so that he could easily spring himself up, doing this as he kicked his other leg forward allowed him to jump and spin at an angle. Throwing all the force he could at a diagonal swing towards Roxy’s left Roxy met his swing by swinging diagonally upward. With the added force of the spin, Hayden managed to force Roxy’s swing in a counter clock-wise circle, at least from his view it was. As the circle reached the bottom, he changed his grip nearest to the wooden Tsuba (the sword guard) with his thumb downward, the back of his hand facing up.

For Hayden in this instant, time slowed down enough to make the change in grip, and his footing, moving the left foot that was forward parallel to his right. Before raising the the sword back at three o’clock, he slid his sword out from under Roxy’s at that angle, the two pieces of wood making a loud grinding sound. With his grip the way it is, Roxy had little time to block the force of Hayden’s horizontal swing to her left, since she didn’t change her grip the same way he did. His right hand pushing the blade forward to the left while his left hand pushed right. With Roxy distracted with blocking that swing, he moved his right foot to hit Roxy’s left knee hard to make it land at her right at the same time her block slightly moved to the right from the distribution of force.

Since Roxy was focusing on two things at once as her body recognized that she was moving downward towards her right while another another blade was forcing her weapon in the same direction, Hayden used the left hand that was kept at the bottom of the handle for this purpose, and pulled the bottom of Roxy’s wrist outwards towards his now left side. Moving his wrist to bend the blade to face Roxy’s neck. It was Hayden’s win.

Stunned, Merlin and Greg clapped as Roxy dropped her blade in surrender. Hayden got up and offered a hand to bring her back up.  
Roxy, slightly stunned herself bowed her head towards Hayden, whom responded in kind.

Harry had seen the split second change of hand grip and was rather impressed. As Eggsy had explained, you did indeed had to force your opponent to go back to instinct. Otherwise, he doubted it would have worked.

“And tha’, “Eggsy said, grinning broadly, “is how you do the Technique”.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *You know how the technique is based of a beat of music? The one I had in my mind for this one was Fire Hive Krewella Remix, By Knife Party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuTOmyGXW6o
> 
> *I was actually doing the stances as I was typing the fight scene so I could follow it with a picture of what could happen in my head and write what I wanted to do next. With my katana umbrella in hand to play the sword. Least to say, the people of my living room looked at me strangely. 
> 
> Holy crud was this kind of hard to get out, I was at a block for weeks. WEEKS. None the less, here it is (and right the edge of December, hilariously enough). Alas, I give it to you, fresh off the keyboard at 1:20am in the morning on my side of the world. Hopefully, I get it out earlier in the month next year. 
> 
> HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! 
> 
> Have a good day/night/whenever you shall read this note. Enjoy.


	8. Chapter 8, I Think This Is A Shovel Talk?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 8 weeks in training, the Boss and Harry have another conversation, and Marie rambles about her other knights.

Chapter 8, I Think This Is A Shovel Talk?

* * *

 

~Two Weeks Later~

 Harry approached Marie quietly in the dimmed room of the library. His home for about 2 weeks, but honestly he didn't know how long he was in here. Time was warped in this space. It could have been years, or perhaps even hours.

 “Do you want to know a secret Harry,” Marie said finally. Their relationship actually grew into a frightfully amusing sense of a husband to their mother-in-law, and Marie used that analogy to its fullest. Constantly grinning at Harry with an evil, evil, glint in her eye when Eggsy’s back was turned. Or not, usually when Eggsy was looking he’d just sigh and shrug at Harry’s silently pleading gaze, himself silently responding _“Sorry gov, you’re on you're own”._  

Harry stayed silent. Simply raising an eyebrow as Marie put the book down to her lap, she had been reading the book (they weren’t exactly sure whether it was the _same_ book) an hour each day for the two weeks they’ve been here, learning. Something told him she wasn’t quite finished with it 

“I knew you had a chance to live through the bullet,” she said casually, as if mentioning the weather. Really, Harry had thought he’d 

“Eggsy said you block yourself from seeing our futures,” Harry said 

Marie sent him a smirk in response, perhaps not even that, since it had seemed to be a simple twitch, “Of course I do. But I have been keeping an eye on Eggsy since I released him back to his world fully trained to the time you recruited him”.

“And really,” she continued, “Valentine may have been a brilliant programer, but his plans are far too predictable, dull, if you truly want my opinion. Though his plan to save the world was far too invested in the deaths of other people for my taste. Not to mention that it had little to no concrete evidence to support his theory,” Marie leaned back into the chair lazily, “So I went ahead”.

“What exactly did you do then?” Harry asked, eyebrows pulling together as he tried to figure out what she would do. None the less, even with the training of analysis that was given to him from his time in the Kingsmen agency, Marie’s type was the worse to predict; they didn’t take their masks off by choice most of the time.

“Well, a certain rambling assistant of Merlin’s may have suggested that the lenses of the glass should be bulletproof”.

“That was you? How did Merlin not recognize you? He was rambling about a ‘brilliant intern’ for weeks since,” Harry narrowed his eyes at the chuckling woman. 

“Well, don't blame him. I was a boy then,” Marie shrugged, “but I can say I never quite knew the difference between the regular glasses and the bulletproof ones, it just happened to be around the time I was replenishing your tech”.

 Harry let out a breath, a small quirk of the mouth followed, “That is a very fine line you didn’t cross”.

Marie grinned at his response, “It’s a line I tend to dance around”.

Harry allowed a small genuine chuckle to make its way out, seeing the honest small quirk of lips and the softening of her features on the otherwise blank expression.

 “Yes. I...noticed that”.

 Marie gave him a look from the corner of her eye, the small quirk raising up just a little, not even a centimeter, but it was higher none the less. Then it disappeared, an amused smirk replacing it before Harry could sort out what it meant, “Oh? How long did it take you to realize that particular detail?”

“Since you made that comment of “dancing around”,” answered Harry, “I realized that you weren’t supposed to help Eggsy when he was...drinking his sorrows”.

Marie snorted at Harry’s choice of words, “Wouldn’t you? Personally, I hate alcohol. Never could stand the stuff as a drink. I prefer working myself to death over drinking, fucked up choice, I know, but whatever,” Marie shrugged, “Yes, to answer your question, I wasn’t really supposed to help. However, if you think about it, I never did help Eggsy now did I?”

 “No, you didn’t, you only gave him a distraction,” Harry noted, “it was us talking in the end that sorted it out, even if he cannot forgive me just yet, he can tolerate my presence for long periods of time at least”.

 “See? Not my doing, Eggsy has always been a sensible child,” Marie said with a grin, “he knows when he’s not making any sense. The saying that the key to a good relationship is propper communication kind of stuck to him. Made him quite the mature child when he was younger, if I remember correctly at least”.

 “If you remember correctly?” Harry quoted with a raise eyebrow, who prompted a wider grin from her.

 “I officially met Eggsy when the rascal was...oh...about 10 maybe? A few months before his Dad died, but I looked after him even after you gave him the medal,” she shrugged at Harry’s questioning look, “I have a pretty shit memory so I don’t expect to be remembering this tomorrow or something, but I do remember playing with him. I mean-” Marie grinned at him, “how the hell did you think Eggz found out about Parkour?”

Marie turned her head front, staring at no particular spot on the wall, “You know, we were playing freeze-tag that day. His Mum was at work, Dean was just a boyfriend back then. I was jumping all around him, close enough that he could get close, but far enough that he couldn’t really catch me. It was maybe an hour in when the little shit managed to catch me off guard and pretend to fall of the wall he was walking on- I panicked, I have little cousins you see, I’m the eldest and therefore the one with the most responsibility, turns out he had a pretty good grip on the pole, enough that he knew he wasn’t gonna fall. Little shite laughed and giggled at me for hours and said he wouldn’t unfreeze me until I taught him how to jump around like spiderman,” Marie laughed at that, as if she had her own inside joke with her self, which probably wasn’t far off given the circumstance, “so I did, took it slow at first. Then I helped him persuade his Mum to get him into gymnastics”.

 Harry smiled at the memory, “Yes I remember, it was quite curious. The idea of Eggsy going to gymnastics was curious, since it came out of the blue like that”.

 “Tch, the boy could handle. Ball of energy he was, still is actually,” Marie muttered to herself. She smiled a little, Harry thought. 

“He loves you, you know”.

 Harry snapped out of those thoughts and stared at Marie in surprise, “I- What?”

 “Eggsy, he loves you, and I am **not** talking about a platonic relationship here. I’m talkin’ full blown kissin’, huggin’, and sure as hell sexin’ up-”.

“I believe that is all the description I need thank you,” Harry said turning as bright as a tomato, Marie laughing at him only added a brighter red to the interesting shades he was showing. She managed to control her laughing down to a small chuckle as she allowed a smile, a real smile, to appear as she stared Harry down.

A fond look flooding the onyx colored eyes, which seemed almost as dark as space. Rather amusingly fitting, if Harry thought about it, for a woman who had nearly infinite knowledge, but still remained oblivious to it just for the sake of it. _What’s the fun of life without its mysteries?_ Someone once said, perhaps, Harry thought, she had taken this very seriously. Besides, he knew there was the ever present question that was still floating around unspoken, _why?_ Why save him, why jump on the wagon to save him of all people early. Eggsy couldn’t have come to... _feel_ anything for him in that short amount of time.

“I trust you, you know, with Eggsy,” she said calmly answering the question almost without any emotion. Harry knew better, he was like this too sometimes, unable to convey feelings correctly, leaving his voice bland. He was sure the old Yggdrasil knew many more people the same way. “And I’m not going to give you the shovel talk, Roxy will quit, rebel against Kingsman and kick your ass personally, and Tim- Well, he may not look like much, but the whole ‘ginger’s are scary when angry’ is something that kid takes seriously. Not to mention Hayden will laugh **out loud** as he slowly beats your corpse to death, with Sherlock and Mycroft helping **together** ...You got a **lot** to worry about if you hurt him. I’m also pretty damn sure you're both too smart to even think of pissing them off, and you are way too in love with Eggsy to even try anything that would make Eggsy uncomfortable”.

“So...tell the little thing that I know you’re gonna say,” Marie simply said, waiting for Harry to say something that was on the tip of his tongue since she began her little speech.

“Yes I do,” Harry said, an amused smile taking over, “but he’s worth it”.

“Awesome”.  
  
“I do have to ask one thing Marie,” Harry turned his head to face her directly. She raised both eyebrows,

 “Yeah?”

“How did you know I was going to say it?”

 Marie shook her head, the genuine grin never leaving her face, “For a man who has been trained on reading people for a very long time. You sir,” she pointed a finger at him, “are so painfully obvious, _it hurts”._

Harry raised an eyebrow mockingly, “Obvious? Truly?”

“As obvious as John clearly having the hots for Sherlock _way_ before they had a relationship. It’s even more obvious that you believe you’re too old for him, which is utterly complete bullshit,” Marie huffed as she remembered the memory, “honestly. You four, as frustrating as Lady Ladybug and Cat Noir”.

 “Lady Ladybug and Cat Noir?” Harry asked with a frown, ignoring the comment on his true feelings. Sometimes it scared him how accurate the woman could be when it came to how each of them thought. Obviously she knew most attitudes better than others, but it doesn’t make it any less unnerving when she could predict what you were going to say _before_ you say it.

 “You don’t know them, but _holy shit_ were they frustrating,” Marie rolled her eyes, “I was undercover for damn near a fucking _decade_ and it was torture. **Torture.** They were clearly pining for each other, even in their alternate egos, but holy fuck the _flirting,_ and the dancing around each other-”.

 Harry smiled as he listened to the old lady (yes she was older than Harry himself, that was perfectly acceptable for Harry to call her that) rant about a couple who clearly did not notice that they absolutely were a couple. Or, at least that was the impression Harry had gotten from the context of what Marie was currently rambling about.

 “-they are worse than Tony and Steve. _Tony and Steve for fuck’s sake!_ Even they realized it themselves _without_ any help from me. Granted, maybe the others pulled some strings, but they realized it themselves after a while, it’s just that neither of them wanted to make a move. It also doesn’t count because hey, this is their teammates that pulled the strings, and officially they’re not a part of the Order. I have to tell you though, in one dimension it was Tony and Bucky, so it was even _worse_ but they figured it out alright for a bunch of stubborn asses-”.

 That was curious, did she mean those three from the comic book? Harry wondered, she did say that she knew a lot of characters- er, people.

 “-but still, this is _Tony,_ he’s as bad as I am when it comes to admitting that you're uncomfortable with something. It’s a trait we bonded over, him, me and Dean get together and fix cars and shit to avoid our problems, it’s like a group bonding thing. Also Harry- not you, Harry Potter I mean, yes I know him, he’s really, really nice. Even as a kid, he’s a bright young man, still is of course. I mean, kid’s a 14 year-old ambassador and can sass the hell out of you-”.

 Oh that was interesting, Harry Potter?

“-and how the hell did it get to Harry? Whatever, what I’m trying to say is, yes. You two are _fucking obvious_ ”.

 Marie threw her arms up in the air to add to her statement, granted it didn’t help, but well.

 It was a solid silence for perhaps an hour before she got up and stretched out, Harry could hear the small pops as she twisted her back from side to side. As well as the slight tilt forward as she stood, a habit picked up from sitting in front of a computer perhaps.

 It was timing that Eggsy walked in, sipping on a cup of tea as he handed a very large, chocolate filled drink to Marie and handed tea to Harry. He sat as they talked, and watched Marie wink at Eggsy before walking off. Leaving Eggsy turning red in her wake.

 “Uh, she-,” Eggsy cleared his throat before continuing, “she didn’t give you the shovel talk did she?”

 "A variation of it,” Harry answered, “least to say I will be weary around Mr. Hayden and Mr. Jones the future”.

 Eggsy’s lip quirked up at that, “Just don’t piss off either of those blokes, y’should be good and ‘appy for a long time”.

 “And you?” 

“What about me ‘Arry?” 

“Did you receive “the talk” from anyone? Roxy perhaps? I doubt Merlin would care- Hayden maybe, but I doubt he would say it verbally, so I believe Timothy would be the most likely-”.

“Harry!’ Eggsy pouted at Harry as he chuckled, but Harry still expected an answer. Granted, the fact that Marie had been keeping an eye on him for a while may have influenced just how severe of a shovel talk he got.

 “I got told by Tim and Hayden after dinner that they’d tell Mar after she’s just gotten passed the ‘holy shit I need to turn in my book to my editor, fuck she’s going to kill me’ stage of ‘er yearly routine,” Harry smiled at that, as Eggsy rolled his eyes, “and she gets fuckin’ pissed when she gets news like that after stress. You know that team in the comic books Avengers? Almost didn’t survive when she found out from Athlus that Tony got depressed. So this crazy old insane, lady comes barging in the highest security they ‘ave and started yelling and throwing peppers at them. Yeah, the peppers were cut down the middle wit the juices, so that hurt, and she has a pretty damn good aim when she’s pissed. They were so stunned that this lady, shorter than them mind you, was yelling at them all pissed and shit”.

“Did they suffer long?” Harry wondered out loud. Eggsy snorted,

 “Yeah, after she was done with them, Ms. Potts. Terrifying lady, but really nice when not pissed, showed up and ripped them apart. Then Mr. Hogan, Ms. Potts’ bodyguard and driver, got a crack at them too. They found out why Mar had thrown peppers”.

Harry turned to Eggsy with a frown, “Why did she throw cut peppers? They are painful, yes, but rather odd don’t you think?”

“Ms. Potts’ nickname is Pepper, it was a warnin’,” Eggsy snorted, “didn’t really help prepare them, but hey”.

“Well, that certainly answers that, but still, getting Peppers thrown at you couldn’t be the worse thing, not saying that I would ever hurt you Eggsy again- but Pepper’s wouldn’t do much to me”.

Eggsy smiled fondly at Harry, “Na, guess not. But she’ll find a way, it’s ‘er after all. She’ll probably think of some sort of torture that will be either hilarious or really painful”.

 Harry smiled back at Eggsy, “Yes, I suppose that’s true, given the evidence”.

 They stared and smiled at eachother for a long time, just comfortable silence as they admired and soaked in the fact that they were here, together, and _alive._

“Harry-” Eggsy started not sure how to talk to the elder, fucking handsome man. His voice caught in his throat as Harry’s eyes turned softer. Eggsy tried clearing his throat several times, trying to think through this cloud of _‘Oh fuck me, he’s so handsome. How the hell do I have a chance? Is this going to work? Of course not-’_ and so on.

Harry simply smiled at him patiently, and Eggsy’s train of thought fizzled out. Leaving him blank of what he could say, and gaping like a fish out of water as he he stared at every contour line that was created with that _fucking brilliant smile._

“Ah, um,” It was official, Eggsy’s brained shorted out.

_‘Ya fuckin’ moron,’_ Eggsy rolled his eyes at himself mentally, proceeding to slightly degrade himself as the new silence continued.

 Harry simply continued to watch Eggsy’s expression change with his thoughts. Which, even if you didn’t particularly find Eggsy attractive, was pretty damn adorable. Especially when Eggsy frowned, he had drawn his eyebrows closer together as he was no doubt arguing or angry at himself for something. Harry could even see the tinge of pink on Eggsy’s cheeks as he tried to avoid looking at him, slightly positioning his body to face the door for the quickest exit out. 

“FUCK NO!” A crash and feet pounding on the wooden floor panels absolutely ruined that though.

 They were both snapped out of their thinking before turning to each other frowning before running to where they heard the yell.

 As they opened the door (the same door Marie had just entered a few minutes ((or perhaps that was hours?)) ago) and looked into a small opened part, enough to fit both their heads and looking left to right.

 Eggsy stared left first before turning to find a running around Marie to her right. She was currently running away from a woman wearing a black trench coat, who was in no hurry to run, but she could walk pretty fast in stilettos. Well then. No wonder, Eggsy observed, that Marie was sprinting lot faster than usual. Perhaps Ms. Adler threatened her with a hug,  it wouldn't have been the first time. The hug rule tends to be a bit flexible with Marie, but usually you can figure out whether you're going to be killed within two feet of the personal bubble or not.

“That must be the infamous Ms. Adler,” Harry said with a snort as Marie was screeching across the hall, running and jumping all over the place to avoid Adler.

 “SCREW YOU ADLER, LEAVE ME ALONE!”.

“Yeah, that’s ‘er,” Eggsy’s eyes followed as she moved back and forth in order to evade the intruder.

 “She doesn’t look that intimidating,” Harry noted as Marie hopped from one table to another to evade capture. Which strangely enough, reminded him of a cat. Or Mr. Pickles with the way she kept checking behind her back. Except Mr. Pickles usually did it because he would always walk faster than Harry himself.

 Eggsy snorted, “Irene Adler is a very much equal ta Sherlock’s smarts. Mar has the fortune of being an enigma that she wants ta solve”.

 Harry gave Eggsy a side look, “I don’t think any one person may, if ever, is going to figure out _her”._

 Eggsy laughed at that in response, “Ya think when Sherlock gave up on figuring out tha way Mar ticks she’d stop. Na, Adler’s more determined then ever I think”. 

They watched as Marie ran passed them and headed straight to a room Harry had never noticed before. Once they heard a distinctive click, they knew Adler was never going to get in. (Eggsy had informed him that it was the Observatory, and only the Yggdrasil was able to get in that room.)

They looked at each other and nodded in agreement, walking out of the room before Ms. Adler could notice their presence.

“You up for some lunch ‘Arry?”

“That would be lovely”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES! EARLIER THEN LAST TIME THAT'S FOR SURE! -clears throat- Anyway, I got his out pretty darn well. (Also I am shipping trash, did I mention that?) None the less, we have more of Harry interacting with Marie, and a little luncheon with Eggsy ohonhon~ We'll see what happens next yeah?
> 
> Thanks for reading! Have a good day/night/whateverisoutside!


	9. Chapter 9, Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio get's their swords

Chapter 9, Ceremony  

* * *

 Harry, Roxy, Merlin, and Greg had suffered (yes, _suffered)_ through 16 weeks of training. They didn't really have to do much physical work to be honest, after all, they were all active in their previous jobs. However, it was the mental labor they had to go through that gave them hell.  

No, it wasn't the teaching part either. They just had to memorize rules, guidelines, and techniques. All things they've learned before. No the grueling, torturous part, was the freaking _mind games._ Yes, you read right, the mind games.  

 

It had started out slow at first, about a day after Eggsy and Harry had made up (though they were still terribly awkward around each other), but slowly they started stumbling through things.  

Harry experienced it first, having adjusted and learned a lot quicker than his fellow students due to prior experience. That wasn't much of a surprise, but he began to feel the change.  

 

Harry felt stronger when he woke up that day, younger, if anything. He could run faster, his reflexes were quicker, but his _head._ His head was _pounding_ , like there was _nails_ being hammered into it every five seconds.  

Even worse, Eggsy wasn't around to relieve some of the pain. (No, Eggsy wouldn't have actually had been able to _do_ much of anything, but Harry was in terrible pain.) This lasted through three _freaking weeks._ Timothy was gone as well, and so was Hayden. After kicking out Adler from the Observatory, Marie was the only experienced one, but she was hold up in that room that Adler wasn't allowed in.  

So Merlin and Roxy did their best to ease Harry's pain, but three days later, both of them were practically wriggling on the floor, pressing their hands to their heads in an attempt to block out that grating pounding.  

 

It wasn't until the fourth day that Marie showed up again, and said just about one of the most simultaneously frustrating and amusing things _ever._  

 

"Oh," she had said as she starred at all of them, who were all in the library floor, on the comfy rug near the fireplace, wriggling in pain, "I forgot about that".  

"Forgot about **what?!** " Merlin gritted out as he held his head in pain.  

 

"After a while, your brain chemistry adjusts to your new roles in your story," Marie said, sitting and lounging on the nearby chair, "It gives you a mental connection to Eggsy, Timothy, and myself. You can't converse directly with any other knights, but you can certainly give impressions to each other. Besides, it also allows you to obtain the most important part".  

 

"What." Roxy growled, "Could possibly. Be **_so_** important. For all this?!"  

 

"Well, if you want your swords like the rest of us, then yeah, that's pretty important. You sword is your direct link to this place. Your beacon. Your way back home. Otherwise you might travel to different alternate dimensions, I thought Tim taught you this, like, what? Two weeks ago?".  

"Why is. It. So. Fucking. Painful?"  

 

Marie couldn't tell who said it, but she shrugged, "Well, that's because this bond is recording every single experience you've ever had, including attempting to read the ones you may have in the future. The reason why it hurts so much is because in order to do that, it also needs to read every single injury you've ever had, and the emotion that went with it. It doesn't always hurt because some people who join just didn't have those injuries. It was a few minutes, then done. You guys though, you guys are Kingsmen agents, meaning you've been through plenty. 'S why Harry's head is hurting so bad. Bullet went by there, and now it's trying to record exact details. Same for your Rox, that trip up in the stratosphere didn't make your chest feel good at _all_. It's the only way you're going to be able to get back home from traveling to other branches, or other paths on your own branch. Kind of like if you wanted to seek advice from an older or younger you,  you'd go to a different path on your same branch. But you'd have to also find your way back to your own right? That's the solution".  

 

"Ugh, why didn't you tell us about this pain earlier?!"  

 

"Uh," Marie frowned, humming and walking about for a bit as Merlin, Roxy, and Harry were moaning and groaning from the pain of their old wounds, "I might have forgot, I think".  

 

"Where's Eggsy?" Harry asked quietly, finally managing to get a hold of the pain so that he could keep himself from making those embarrassing noises.  

 

"Um, I think they went out on a hunting trip, there was a notification of shadow presence down in Marvel Movie Verse New York, they wanted to check it out since Tony was recently put in the hospital, Charles is busy dealing with Lensherr so Vlad is busy trying to keep things calm, and Deadpool is still having, er, I mean he's busy. In Canada. Where nothing happens. Yeah..." 

"Icarus and Prod?"  

 

"Icarus is trying to prevent Cable from coming in to early, but you know how I described Cable," (she never did), "smarter-than-thou attitude and all that, normally I mean, but I kinda pity the kid for dealing with it. I swear the poor kid's starting to malt. Prod is trying to repair herself, but with Tony stuck in the hospital, she doesn't exactly have an extra hand to help her out. Plus she has to wait for the upcoming shipment from Wakanda, so yeah. She's busy".  

"So yeah, Eggsy, Tim, and Hayden are filling in for them," Marie shrugged helplessly, "they looked pretty stressed...oh, yeah, today's the day they update".  

 

There was a questioning silence even as the Kingsmen agents grit their teeth in pain, "Their swords are updating data for their verse. It doesn't hurt as much, but it's like having cramps combined with a migraine the size of the sun, times the size of Russia".  

"Also, do you guys want to see them? It's been a few days and I could see you guys are at 97% update, I'll go grab 'em," Marie got up to do exactly that, and as she predicted the agents could feel t pain slowly dull and ebb away. The pain from all their previous injuries numbed after a few minutes, and they could finally get off the floor after three days just laying there to grit through the pain. These swords had better be worth it. 

 

Marie came back with a rifle, a glock 17, and an umbrella.  

 

"I was right! They appeared a few seconds after I got there, made of Yggdrissian materials, you guys actually have pretty practical ones for starters, since you know, you can't make your weapon into anything else till later," She pulled out the glock 17," and yes, I know it looks like this shit wasn't worth experiencing _every single injury_ you've ever had. However!"  

She clicked a button that was _definitely_ not supposed to be above the safety and a blade about three inches in width slid out from the frame under the barrel, "It does have a blade. I mean, it's kind of Final Fantasy-Gun blade-y but hey, it's your weapon".  

 

She handed it to Roxy, who went down to the gym to test it out. She pulled out the rifle, it was cool blue in color, with ornate patterns swirling into the trigger, but the barrel seemed thin enough to be a blade in itself, the guard curled in on itself in another set of swirls, which were surprisingly comfortable on the arm when Merlin checked it out himself. It had a light grey scope that was about two inches in diameter that went down up where the thin, abnormally rectangular barrel was. 

Merlin admired it's esthetic, but then asked, "How do you load the bullets on this thing?"  

 

Marie simply raised an eyebrow, "Who said it shot bullets?" She aimed at an empty can that was across the room and fired one shot. A light blue blade of energy whipped across the room and hit the can, which bounced off the floor up into the air.  

In a blur of speed, she ran across the room, and that's when they noticed how much of a difference the training made.  

 

Their perception of time slowed down, the can flying up maybe two meters up in the air and slowly coming down, but Marie was going at a normal (or semi-normal) sprinting pace, grabbing onto a notch on rifle and bringing it across, which is when it started to act something akin to a handlebar, a blade of blue light sprung from the fantasy-like rifle's barrel and stayed there this time. She swung her arm across the can which had dropped to one meter in height, cutting it.  

When she landed on the floor, the can had split into two pieces and rang across the floor as it ricocheted back into the air a few inches before coming down again.  

 

She took her time walking back to where Merlin and Harry stood and wordlessly passed the rifle to Merlin, who followed Roxy's example.  

"And to you Harry, your favorite Kingsmen issued weapon," she swung the umbrella, "the umbrella. A truly versatile weapon. In both function, and effectiveness". 

As she gave it to him, she winked at him, "I think I'll let you test it out yourself".   

 

With that Marie left him alone and walked off to wherever she heads too when she wasn't teaching nor hanging around the library. While Harry could claim he knew Marie well enough how she liked her coffee (black) and her favorite tea (Earl Grey, and strangely, lipton) she was still a mystery. A mystery that remained ever so erratic on the truth of things.  

Even after he had verbal confirmation that he had approval to date Eggsy (Marie strong-armed Timmy to give his verbal confirmation) Harry had still felt uneasy with the public display of affection. He had thought that perhaps it was because he had not yet gained the approval of Eggsy's mother nor his little sister. However, the uneasiness still came from Marie and Timothy watching his every move. 

He felt that something was coming. Something bad, and if there was anything he learned from his time here, it was to trust your gut when it said something was going to go bad.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, long time no see? -laughs nervously- Anyway, chapter 9, I know not very fulfilling hm? Hopefull Chapter 10 will be longer, I mean, it is the last chapter here. 
> 
> Yep, you read right the next chapter is going to be the last one. For this part of the Yggdrasil story anyway. I'll see you there. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading this~ Have a good day/night/afternoon!


	10. Chapter 10, Final Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bad feeling Harry has proves to be right.

Chapter 10, Final Revelations

* * *

            ~One Month Later~

 

            Harry quickly stabbed the shadow creature in the neck, the shadow dissipating into the air as the Kingsmen manor was finally cleared of shade creatures. It had been a month, some what two, since Harry had first came back from the hospital. The lasting affects of a bullet to the side of his face still lingering. Since he became an official member of the Yggdrasil order.

            _“I’m finished here in the Office,”_ he spoke over his mental connection with Roxy and Merlin, who were clearing up the training room and some of the other rooms when they came back.

            _“Roger,”_ was the mental response he received back.

 

            The unnerving feeling he had still lingered, even though Marie had become to be more than a scary mentor, even though Tim had become known to him as Eggsy’s brother, he still got unnerving feelings from the both of them.

            The simple black and maple wood handled umbrella was used almost like a cane as Harry took the chance to simply _breath_ and leaned into the umbrella. Unlike most umbrellas, the frame didn’t bend with his lean.

 

            He couldn’t get what was unnerving him so much. While he and Eggsy were far from the perfect couple, (they hadn’t even had their first _date_ yet), they were still comfortable enough with each other to preform some _spectacular_ activities in the bedroom.

            The insane woman walking in on them wiliest they were naked without so much as a blush on her face added to what was already a large sense of warning that came from her, and by extension, Tim. Yet, he knew that wasn’t the sole reason his weariness for the woman wasn’t that. Out of all the training he’s had, he just couldn’t see the angle for which _why_ Marie and Timothy had came off that way. It simply did. Like there was some nagging in his head that their presence wasn’t quite right. Marie more so than Timothy.

           

            He shot the shadow forming behind him without even so much as a turn in that direction.

 

            He felt a sudden sharp pain at the forefront of his mind, where Eggsy’s own often brushed up against when they were together. Instantly he ran out of the room in haste heading to the floor where Eggsy and Timothy were sent to, the same floor where the meetings with all the round table members were held.

            As he climbed the manual stairs to the front of the manor, he stopped as he faced a Timothy, who was bleeding much from his head. Staining the orange hair that was matted down due to the dry and drying blood.

            “Eggsy,” Tim groaned urgently, and Harry ignored that small panic in both himself and Tim’s voice in favor of sitting Tim up and making sure that he could protect himself even with his condition (which Marie was no doubt monitoring, otherwise she’d be kicking down the door, gun’s blazing) with Timothy taken care off, Harry sprinted towards the main room.

            The tables and chairs were thrown about, very few of them were still in good condition to be used as a proper seat. The table itself was cracked in the middle, lying brokenly in the middle of the room.

            A shadowed figure held Eggsy by the throat, it seemed that it was arguing with Eggsy.

 

            “And I told you,” Eggsy growled, his nails attempting to dig into the shadowed figures hands, “there’s no way in _bloody fuckin’ ‘ell_ that you are convincing me ta betray JJ of all people!”

            The shadowed figure seemed displeased at that and threw Eggsy half-way across the room. Harry had a scary inkling that the throw was more of a light toss than what it could have been.

 

            Harry aimed his Umbrella and shot at the shadowed figure. The figure easily avoided the bright red beams of light that protruded from the umbrella’s tip in fire. He almost dropped the umbrella in surprise as a familiar pair of black eyes peered out from the figure’s shawl. The figure, a woman, turned her head curiously, looked back at Eggsy, then promptly back at Harry. A majority of her face were covered by the hood though.

            She smirked and then disappeared.

 

            Harry rushed towards Eggsy’s side, the young man was groggily waking up and blinking up at Harry as he gently checked if he had sustained any damaged.

            “It seems it’s just your pride and intelligence were damaged in this fight, “Harry said with a relieved sigh.

            “Tim?”

            “Resting, he’s got a bad cut, but Marie hasn’t showed up yet so I assume he’s just going to ear-full when he get’s home; he will recover I assure you”.

           

            There was a comfortable silence as Harry joined Eggsy on the floor, since the talk, they had both been slowly growing comfortable with each other’s company. Even before the incident with shooting the dog. Which both Tim and Marie gave Harry hell about.

            While Harry was very sure that Eggsy was going to have a bruise around his neck tomorrow, he pondered on what had occurred.

            “Eggsy,” Harry said, sternly, “who was that?”

            Eggsy sighed, “Just some old woman who doesn’t know what the bleedin’ ‘ell is goin’ on is all”.

            There was a tense silence that followed that blatantly told Harry to back off. Normally he would pursue the issue further until the answer was satisfactory, but the circumstances between Eggsy and he had changed substantially. It was a newly formed bond that Harry wasn’t willing to put into jeopardy unless forced to. With a gun trained to Eggsy’s head. He had just gotten to this point with the boy he had admittedly fallen for the instant he saw Eggsy in action. He wasn’t going to lose that again. Ever.

            “JJ?”

            Eggsy smiled, “Marie’s nickname, the whole first-name thing is just a formality. She’ll ask you to call her that when she’s really fond of you”.

            Harry hummed in answer, Eggsy slightly leaning into the older gentleman. It was a peaceful moment for the both of them. No words needed, nor was there any more assurances. Just two boys enjoying each other’s company.

 

            Until Tim ruined the moment.

 

            “I’d hate to ruin the moment gentlemen-“

            “You’re a lyin’ son of a’ arse and you know it Tim”.

            “-but Eggsy and I do need some form of medical attention if we are to avoid the Boss’ lectures”.

            Eggsy released a suffering sigh, looking at Harry with a pleading look.

 

            “You do need to get your neck checked Eggsy, those may turn out to be serious”.

            Eggsy groaned louder.

            “Thank you Harry, now Eggsy come on,” Tim got up and was currently leaning on his sword that he had turned into a cane, he had gotten nicked on the side by a particularly devious shade. While they were certainly good at fighting, no Knight was _that_ good, except for maybe Marie. However that’s a different matter entirely, “Up you go”.

            Tim nodded at Harry and dragged Eggsy out, carrying a majority of Eggsy’s weight out the door to meet up with Merlin and Roxy to head to a medical specialist.

            _“We’re meeting up with Greg and the others at the Pub later, coming?”_ Tim offered to Harry. Harry sent off his thanks and “be there” as he got up. Brushing down his suit to make it more presentable.

           

            “Well, well, well, Marie’s gotten herself another knight eh?”

 

            Harry froze for a millisecond before sharply twisting his umbrella to reveal the hidden short sword that made up it’s shaft.

            The woman from earlier leaped backwards out of the way before raising both her hands up.

            “Easy old man,” she said, “I’m not here to fight you”.

            Remembering Eggsy’s words Harry kept his grip on the sword tight as he took the woman’s words with a grain of salt.

            “I’m here to let you know that the little shit’s not being completely honest with you”.

            “Marie?”

            “Yes, that bitch,” The woman nodded, the hood still kept the figure’s face obscured, “she never really told you the _real_ reason why the Order and us _Shades_ as she calls us are at odds did she? Shame”.

            “You’re attacking Eggsy,” He said with a slight snarl.

            “Ah ah ah!” The woman wagged her finger at him, “we’re not targeting little Gary “Eggsy” Unwin hun, he just gets in the way all the damn time”.

            “Timothy?” Harry asked, suddenly confused, and it seeped through his voice, “Why?”

            “Because he’s a part of that _bitch,”_ the woman hissed the last word out, “you ever wonder why she suddenly took a special interest in you? In any of the members of her so called “order”? Cause she’s omnipotent, she sure as hell doesn’t need _you”._

            “She chose not to use her omnipotence, why are you telling me this?”

            “Hah,” The woman scoffed, “ ‘not to use her omnipotence’? You idiotic fucker, omnipotence isn’t something that can be _turned off_ at a moment’s notice! Let me ask you the real question, _why did you join the order?”_

            Harry was about to open his mouth to retort, but he food that he couldn’t. He searched his mind, searched his memories. Went back to the very moment Marie had walked into the door, the same door he was in, yet he couldn’t find a reason. He couldn’t find _one_ reason as to why he decided to become a part of the order. To protect Eggsy? Eggsy made it perfectly well known that he could protect himself, and Timothy could cover for Eggsy well enough. Marie had also made it perfectly clear that he would still be able to help Eggsy, to remember Eggsy’s role in the order, all of them had that option.

            Why did he decide to join? Why did _they,_ Merlin, Roxy, and he, decide to join.

            “Can’t find an answer, can ya?” The woman said amused, “it’s as expected. She not just omnipotent idiot. She can manipulate you like strings to puppets”.

            “How would she do that? _Why_ would she do that?”

            “She can do that because she wants to, for her own gains. Hell if I know if I know what goes in that sick ass mind of hers. You do realize you’re _supposed_ to be dead right?”

            “Dead? No- she interfered-“.

            “Exactly, and without her, you would have been dead. Shot. At point blank by Nick Valentine. With Eggsy taking your place at Galahad. Why the hell do you think there’s been, “an influx of shade presence” as she likes to say? It’s because we’re trying to fix this mess”.

            “Face it idiot,” the woman narrowed her eyes at him in a smirk, “you’ve been playing into her hand. With Garry over there as bait”.

            “Eggsy can protect himself from manipulation,” Harry defended, but the woman’s words were too true.

            “Yeah? How do you think he got that way? You have that feeling, I know it, I can sense it. Deep in your gut, you’re primordial brain is afraid of the head bitch. Ever wonder why she seems so scary to you Hart?”

            She stepped into Harry’s personal space, face close to Harry’s that they’d almost be touching noses, “Sherlock and his trope? They’re aren’t supposed to be here. _You aren’t supposed to know them._ Your dead. You and those lot? Tim and the bitch? _You don’t belong here, none of you are”._

 

            Harry finally growled in anger as he sliced the shadow into oblivion. A cold, cruel laughter echoing through the room.

            _“Ask the bitch next time you see her. Remember what I said Hart, she controls. You don’t have the freedom you think you have. The name’s Minerva”._

Harry watched the shadows disappear, and noticed the room had grown brighter with it’s leave.

            He ran to the nearest mirror.

 

            “Huh? Harry, why are you huffing? Are you okay?” Marie got up from her seat in the library and came near the older gentleman she had grown fond of over the past few months.

            “Marie,” Harry said, catching his breath, “I met Minerva”.

            He watched as Marie suddenly straightened, her expression grew blank again. Like the first day they met. Her shoulder’s stiffened, and she instantly became guarded.

            “Yeah? What did she tell you then?” She said quietly, but it might as well had been spoken through a megaphone with how loud is seemed to be. Spoken with a voice that had seemed devoid of emotion.

            “Why did you make us become knights Marie”.

 

            “…” There was silence as Marie flinched and looked down suddenly, confirming Harry’s suspicions. Everything they’ve done up to know. Harry’s survival, their meetings. It was never really their decisions, it was all her. It was all Marie’s work. The question was _why?_

            “-Eggsy’s happiness”.

            Harry blinked in surprise, “What?”

            “Your wondering why I did what I did. Saved you, dragged Eggsy out of that bar all those weeks ago. Your wondering why I bothered,” she said quietly.

            Harry narrowed his eyes as her, his grip on his umbrella tight enough that his knuckles turned white. He could see her shifting her weight between her legs, the action making her seem so much younger than she really was. Or perhaps not. At this point he didn’t know.

            “You didn’t hear him scream Mr. Hart,” she said quietly, and Harry’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

            “You didn’t see him scream at the screen of the laptop as you were shot by Valentine. You didn’t see him savagely use a _fountain pen_ to rip a hole into a dead man’s neck in order to find the man that killed you. You didn’t see him tell Merlin, _without hesitation,_ tell Merlin to make everyone’s head explode”.

            “That could have been children that were simply doing what their parents told them to do, those people without heads could simply be relatives of those who agreed with Valentine’s plans,” Marie said quietly, “and he gave to order to kill with little to no remorse. And when he did show remorse, when he finally decided to _drink his sorrows,_ it wasn’t about the people he killed. It wasn’t about the innocence he could have potentially just _murdered._ It was you. It was about you _dying”._

            “You wondered why I cared. You asked about what I get out of this. What I get out of this is the Eggsy that I knew when he was a kid, I get the Eggsy who wouldn’t say a damn word about the people he was with when he was caught stealing an asshole’s car. I get Eggsy, living beside the man who can make his life the happiest”.

            “You-“ Harry swallowed, he tried to ignore how much of a _good reason_ those words were, or seemed to be, “You didn’t have the _right_ to do _any of those things._ You manipulated us, _I’m not even sure if my words are my own or **yours.** ”. _

            “Well it’s not like I can _stop_ giving you things to say!” Marie threw her hands up in the air, “I do that- right here, right now. _Nothing will happen._ Everything will be stuck in place. Nothing will progress, _nothing will move on._ You won’t even have thoughts or movement. Time will stop and _you won’t even know it”._

“I’m not a God, or the God for that matter! I can’t do what a God can do! I tried, I did, but I _can’t”._

“Do what? What can you not do that God seems to be able to do?! What is so hard about leaving things alone?”

            “I CAN’T GIVE YOU FREE WILL HARRY,” Marie collapsed on the floor, sitting down and curling up into herself, “I tried, I can’t”.

Harry collapsed along side her, seeing realizing that Marie wasn’t lying as frustrated streams of water cascaded down her face. There was no sniffles, nor was there any hiccups. Just quiet water droplets wetting the carpeted floor.

           

            “I understand, I won’t tell Eggsy,” Harry amended quietly.

            “He knows, to some degree. All the Arch Knights and Celestials do to some degree, they just don’t reach the same conclusions as you do is all”.

            “Why did I then?”

            Marie smiled sadly, “I suppose I needed to tell you as a person is all. It’s hard watching you all, whether it be on a screen or on a page on a book. Or even a chapter from another Yggdrasil. My mind never turns off, I when your sad, I _always_ think of making you happy. I’m an author, as much as I make my own characters suffer, I strive to give them a happy ending to the best of my abilities too. Sometimes I can’t, but I try”.

            “Some may think that’s those happy endings are all just for entertainment. For the readers so that my books can sell, and I wish I could say that was the case. But it’s just not. When I make my characters, my children really, suffer. I do too,” Marie pointed at herself where her chest was, “I get this really painful feeling under my ribcage”.

            “The shades are me too,” Marie admitted, “they are the very things I’ve been running away from since I first enjoyed writing. They hurt me by throwing cannons in my face. Minerva, she’s me too. She’s the me I’m afraid of being. I think you’re starting to get who the shades are, don’t you Harry?”

            “To some degree, yes, they’re reality. Your reality, aren’t they? A reminder of what really in a story, as you call it”.

            Marie hummed and stared at no space in particular.

            “…You aren’t talking to me anymore are you?”

            “Oh I am,” Marie nodded, “Just not _only_ you”.

 

            “Go ahead and join the others, I reckon they’re at the pub now,” Marie said quietly.

            Harry nodded and got up to walk back, walk back to his branch, his story. Before leaving he turned back towards Marie, “I won’t tell the others”.

 

            Harry turned and finally left.

 

            Marie smiled sadly, looking off as she knew Harry was making his way to the pub, the same pub he met with Eggsy in. The same pub that Tim had to drag Eggsy from.          

            “Yeah,” Marie said, laughing sadly, “you won’t”.

 

            She pulled up the writing with the conversation the Yggdrasil and Harry had just moments before, the word document glowing back at her mockingly. She selected the entire chapter, and deleted the text. Then began typing out another in it’s place.

 

            _Harry, swift a tired sigh finally got up from where he had sat down. Deciding to head back home to find a change of clothing before joining the others to head to the pub. If Tim’s instructions were right, the pub they were meeting at would be the same one that Harry had first given Eggsy a glimpse of the Kingsmen life._

_With that task finally done, he made his way towards the pub and smiled at the greetings and open smiles that were given to him. Although Sherlock looked none to pleased to be here in particular, he seemed satisfied that John was with him to keep him company._

_“Hey,” Harry turned at the greeting and found Eggsy smiling warmly at him._

_“Gary Unwin, call me Eggsy? You are?...”_

_Harry laughed at Eggsy’s attempt at humor and responded in kind, “Pleasure to meet you Eggsy, Harry Hart”._

_“What’s a rich handsome man like you doing in this part of town?” Eggsy asked, feigning a frown._

_“Seeing the sites really,” Harry said with a small helpless shrug._

_“Well in that case,” Eggsy motioned over to the bar, where Timothy rolled his eyes at the couple, “care for a drink ‘Arry?”_

_Harry smiled, “With pleasure, Eggsy”._

_“Ugh,” Timothy said, as the two came over finally, “you two **suck** at foreplay”._

_The worries of the new responsibilities they’d just received melted away as Harry and Eggsy actively strived to annoy Timothy the best they could. The shades long forgotten for now, they settled into a routine that they’d hope would stand the test of time._

_And if Eggsy’s ass hurt the morning after? Well, they had saved up enough vacation days anyway._

 

            As she clicked save, the resulting click echoed through the room. Shutting down her laptop, Marie gave a long suffering sigh.

            “It has been written,” she said slightly amused with herself, “and it shall be done”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much else needed, here lies the end of this particular story. Perhaps more one shots to come.  
> -bows- thanks for reading so far! Hope you enjoyed this piece born from madness. 
> 
> Have a good day/night/afternoon!


	11. A Questionable Prologue

            A Questionable Prologue

* * *

 

 Harry arose with swift a tired sigh as he finally got up from where he had sat down. Deciding to head back home to find a change of clothing before joining the others to head to the pub. If Tim’s instructions were right, the pub they were meeting at would be the same one that Harry had first given Eggsy a glimpse of the Kingsmen life.

           

            With that task finally done, he made his way towards the pub and smiled at the greetings and open smiles that were given to him. Although Sherlock looked none to pleased to be here in particular, he seemed satisfied that John was with him to keep him company.

            “Hey,” Harry turned at the greeting and found Eggsy smiling warmly at him.

 

            “Gary Unwin, call me Eggsy? You are?...”

            Harry laughed at Eggsy’s attempt at humor and responded in kind, “Pleasure to meet you Eggsy, Harry Hart”.

            “What’s a rich handsome man like you doing in this part of town?” Eggsy asked, feigning a frown.

            “Seeing the sites really,” Harry said with a small helpless shrug.

            “Well in that case,” Eggsy motioned over to the bar, where Timothy rolled his eyes at the couple, “care for a drink ‘Arry?”

            Harry smiled, “With pleasure, Eggsy”.

           

            “Ugh,” Timothy said, as the two came over finally, “you two **suck** at foreplay”.

 

            The worries of the new responsibilities they’d just received melted away as Harry and Eggsy actively strived to annoy Timothy the best they could. The shades long forgotten for now, they settled into a routine that they’d hope would stand the test of time.

            And if Eggsy’s ass hurt the morning after? Well, they had saved up enough vacation days anyway.

           

            The next morning, Eggsy found Harry frowning at in the middle of breakfast. While Eggsy didn’t take any particular pleasure sitting down, he was still worried for the older gentlemen. Insecurities rearing it’s ugly head.

            “’Arry? What’s wrong?”

 

            “Nothing,” Harry said, snapping out of his train of thought and smiling at Eggsy as he moved to grab the plate of breakfast he had made earlier before Eggsy got up, “I just feel like I forgot something important”.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This idea just...popped. So yeah. There's more to this 'Order of Yggdrasil' story line i'm going for, but this story is specifically for Kingsman because I refuse to accept that Harry's dead. So yeah. Also, the this is going to take a bit to fill up but the basics of the story line hopefully stay in my head for a while. First chapter is also complete crap and really short, so I apologize for that. Either way, hope you enjoyed it.


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